


The Last of the Anthousai

by americanphancakes



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Buried Alive, Fae & Fairies, Fire, Flooding, Forest Sex, Genocide, Half-Human, M/M, Monsters, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Near Death Experiences, Past Character Death, Phil is caught up in a conflict the magnitude of which he cannot fully comprehend, Pixies, Poison, Royalty, Suspense, evil plants
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-07-08 11:03:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 29,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19868572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/americanphancakes/pseuds/americanphancakes
Summary: Phil is different from everyone else in his village. For one thing, his mother is dead. For another, she wasn't human, so neither is he. To learn how to harness the powers he inherited from her, Philip enlists the aid of a Druid living at the edge of a mysterious forest. To make matters more complex, the forest’s waters are drying up and a beautiful flower nymph is telling Philip that he's some sort of chosen one sent to the forest in order to protect it. How is Phil supposed to handle all of this? And who or what is causing the forest to slowly die?My fic for Phandom Reverse Bang 2019.





	1. Act 1: The Forest

**Author's Note:**

> My fic for the 2019 Phandom Reverse Bang, based on [art by DumpsterDiving101.](https://dansphlevels.tumblr.com/post/186414932908/art-for-the-last-of-the-anthousai-by)
> 
> Thank you to my beta Elleberquist6 for always being so thorough and supportive!

They all told young Philip never to cross the river at the stone bridge. 

He could take the old bridge to the farm, the rickety bridge to the meadow, the wooden bridge to the Mayor’s estate, the covered bridge into town, or the fancy modern cement bridge to reach the road to the Big City, but never under any circumstances should he cross the stone bridge. Because the stone bridge would take you to The Forest.

Not that he would obey that order forever, of course. The call of the Forest was far too strong for Philip. It was to be expected given the nature of his parentage; one day, Philip was going to cross that bridge.

Philip spent most of his childhood unaware that he was all that different from other children. He knew his life was different, of course -- most of his peers had mothers around, for example, but his had died before he could remember. His father had only one memento of her: the ring he’d used to propose. She declined, for reasons upon which Philip’s father never elaborated, but he wore the ring on a chain around his neck and never removed it.

But that was the only thing Philip saw as unique about his life. And it was the only thing anyone else saw as unique about him, for you see, for the first ten years of his life, young Philip went entirely unnoticed. His unremarkable face and unremarkable light-brown hair and unremarkable silence had made him, well… unremarkable. But at ten years old, Philip began to freckle up in the sun. He began to get taller. His hair darkened. And the blue of his irises began to brighten and deepen. Suddenly, he was a person! Suddenly the other children were aware of him. And suddenly, he began to make friends.

One sunlit spring day when Philip -- or rather, Phil, as his new friends called him -- was eleven years old, he was invited to go swimming with the other children in the lake for the very first time. A bully, invading the children’s fun, tried to hold him under the water for quite a long time indeed, only to be amazed when Phil did not choke or flail or panic, but instead stayed safely under the water for minutes upon minutes. The bully did not bother Phil for the rest of the day, but then again, neither did the other children. In fact, they barely spoke to him at all. Phil noticed also that the other children’s fingers had wrinkled up like prunes after only a short time in the water. Phil was puzzled -- his fingers had never done that after a bath, and sure enough, they weren’t doing that today either. The other children also shivered when wet, whereas Phil felt the cool of the air on his skin only after the water had dried away from it.

That night, curious and a bit frightened that he was perhaps ill or broken in some way the other children weren’t, young Philip nervously asked his father what these reactions to water might mean.

And in a solemn conversation, Philip finally learned who -- or rather, what -- his mother had been.

Feeling like even more of an outsider than he ever had before, young Philip ran. He ran and ran as far from the village as he could, towards the forbidding forest that he could always see from his window, until he came across a cottage that was not far at all from the old stone bridge.

The cottage was modest and very old, but surrounded by flowers. They grew out of the ground, in planters of various sizes, and even in sinuous fingers climbing up the cottage walls. The cottage itself housed an old man whose reputation preceded him. He was said to be a Druid, one of the last remaining followers of an old religion that the people of the village said was dark, dangerous, and at the very least unseemly. Everyone had always told Philip to be afraid of the eccentric old man, but they never properly explained  _ why _ he should fear him. They said he was weird, and strange, and odd, and any number of other words that mean little more than “different.” Phil was not afraid of different. After all, he was different too.

So, Phil knocked on the door.

As soon as the old Druid laid eyes on Phil, he smiled a relieved-looking smile.

“Come inside,” the Druid said urgently, but kindly. “The night grows chilly. You’ll catch your death out there!”

Young Philip looked up at the intimidatingly tall old man and noted the kindness and worry in his eyes. He nodded, believing what those eyes told him: he was welcome, and would be safe here.

The Druid motioned to a stool near the fire. The cottage was not tiny, but it was not particularly spacious to begin with; the shelves of books and plants and scrolls and clutter of various sorts only decreased the available space further. Despite that, Phil did not feel cramped and claustrophobic. Both literally and metaphorically, he found himself rather able to breathe more deeply and more freely. And what a joy it was to breathe in this cottage! The air was a symphony of scents. Flowers and parchment and soil and tea leaves all mingled in the air, the fragrances dancing together on their way to Phil’s nose. His face relaxed, which surprised him, for he hadn’t felt the tension he’d been carrying on it.

Phil felt a blanket wrap around his shoulders and realized how cold the evening had become only once he felt relief from it.

“Tea?” the old man asked from the area Phil could only call the kitchen, despite the fact that it wasn’t a room so much as a cutting surface, a woodburning stove, and a larder. “I can’t make much, but I can make a lovely cup of tea.”

“That would be lovely, thank you.”

Soon enough, the Druid was sitting across from him, handing him a teacup and looking at Phil expectantly, as though waiting for him to say or do something. 

“What’s your name?” Phil asked.

“Taneli,” the old man answered. “And your blue eyes tell me that you are young Philip, if I’m not mistaken.”

“How d’you know that?”

“I don’t leave my cottage often, but I do leave sometimes. A man can’t get by without getting supplies from time to time, you know. I’ve spoken to your father once or twice.”

“Oh.”

Phil fidgeted nervously, unsure about this old man staring at him. Looking at Taneli more closely, his dark eyes appeared even older and wiser than his body; his mannerisms, however, made him appear as youthful as Phil himself.

“How old are you?” Phil asked.

Taneli cast his eyes upward as though the ceiling held the answer. “Forty.”

Phil nodded. A pause, then, “You look older.”

“Do I?” Taneli responded. “Well… Fifty, then.”

Phil’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “How long have you been fifty?”

Taneli smiled, a mischievous sparkle in his eye. “A clever one, you are,” he said. “Asking the right questions.” His face twisted up thoughtfully as he gave the question thought. “I’m actually not certain.” His head tilted as he looked at Phil. “How old are you?”

“Eleven.”

“Eleven hundred?”

Phil’s smile popped out a loud snicker. “No!” he laughed. “Just eleven. Eleven years old.”

“My word, so young!”

“I’m not  _ that _ young.” Phil’s face sank back down into a pout. “I’m not a stupid little child. Everyone always treats me like a child. I was hoping you wouldn’t.”

“But you  _ are _ a child,” Taneli said, sounding disappointed that Phil would claim otherwise. “Being a child is brilliant! One of the greatest things you can learn is that there is no shame, no shame whatsoever, in being young.”

“Yes there is. People keep things from children. People don’t tell children the truth.” Phil’s voice tensed, his lower lip pouting and beginning to tremble.

“Something tells me,” Taneli said slowly, “that you recently learned just such a truth.”

Phil nodded.

“Was it, by any chance, that you are half undine?”

Phil looked into the old man’s even older eyes with a start. “How did you know?” he gasped, frightened.

Taneli smiled a smile that he intended to be calming and reassuring. “That blue in your eyes is not just blue. It is the water within you.” Taneli leaned forward and lowered his voice. “It is your  _ magic _ .”

Phil made a rather put-off face, both amazed that the old man knew and affronted by this apparent breach of his privacy. “You’re just as crazy as everyone says you are.”

“I must confess,” Taneli said calmly, “I have awaited your arrival at my door for some time.” The Druid knelt down on the ground and looked into Phil’s water-blue eyes. “You have a calling, Phil. A purpose. You were born for a reason. Your magic could save lives!”

“Really?” Phil said quietly, intrigued by the suggestion that he might be some kind of hero. He’d always loved fairy tales about wizards and warriors of old.

“Yes,” Taneli said with a nod. “I know much of the undine water nymphs. I know what they can do -- what  _ you _ can do if you practice.”

“How, though? How can you know that?”

“Most of it has come from my readings,” Taneli said, pointing at some of the shelves. “But some has come from observation.”

“Wait, does that mean you’ve  _ seen _ them?”

“Oh yes,” the Druid said without emphasis, as though it were the most everyday thing to see undines at work. “I’ve seen them performing incredible feats, too. Creating storms, bringing water back to dry river beds, even summoning great beasts made of the water itself!”

Phil gave Taneli a disbelieving look. “And… I can do those things?”

“Someday, perhaps. With work and study and practice. If you’d like, I can teach you. As best I can, at any rate.”

“I don’t know…” Phil mused doubtfully. And then added, “Maybe.”

The two of them talked long into the evening. Philip talked about his life, and how for years he’d suspected he was somehow different, but until going swimming today he hadn’t had anything solid to ask his father about. In response to Phil’s many questions, Taneli told him about the Forest and the sorts of creatures that dwelled there. Cynical for his age, Philip laughed at first, dismissing imps and pixies and gnomes as the stuff of children’s stories, but Taneli eyed him very seriously and reminded him of his own water sprite nature.

After this meeting with the mysterious Druid, the impossible became possible -- up was down, black was white, and fairy tales were reality. The feeling was at first terrifying, and he felt lost and disoriented swimming in the knowledge that there were layers to his world that he’d never known about before. It was all too much.

“What do you say, Philip?”

“Hm?”

“Would you like to learn how to hone your skills?”

Phil bit at the inside of his cheek, gazing into the last few licks of flame in the fireplace. He wondered about his mother, and knew these abilities he apparently had were a tie to her. Stronger, to be sure, than his father’s necklace. But he was so unsure about the responsibility he would apparently be shouldering by taking this path. “Could I think about it?”

Taneli gave a reassuring smile, trying to hide that he was disappointed. “Of course,” he said kindly, giving a nod. “Take as long as you need. Though... I do hope you’ll say yes.”

When Phil walked into his front door, his father scolded him for being out so late and talking with that crazy old man, spouting something about “whatever that strange man says is complete nonsense.” Phil barely heard him, though. He had his own mind and could think about things all on his own, thank you very much.

Phil’s bed, at least, was warm and safe and predictable. It cleared his mind. Whatever his father or the other children said, he knew one thing: water, somehow, was a friend. Whether the crazy old Druid was right or the rest of his village were correct in cautioning him away from that old cottage, water definitely treated Phil with more respect and kindness than it treated anyone else. It listened to him, it kept him warm, and it stayed out of his lungs so he’d be safe. In the calm of his room, Phil cleared all worries away from his mind, and finally there was room for some acceptance of who and what he really was.

He was his mother’s son. He was undine.

So, in the morning, he returned to visit Taneli.

The Druid’s face lit up upon seeing Philip standing at his door.

“Teach me everything,” the boy said.

***

Whenever he could avoid his father’s watchful eyes, Phil would leave home and head for Taneli’s cottage, where he learned how to manipulate water in all its forms. He learned he had a natural talent for turning small amounts of water to steam, and gathering potable amounts of water from the air was only a moderate challenge. Far more difficult was turning water into ice. The energy it required made Phil himself feel cold. Taneli spent a good deal of time helping Phil ease into that particular talent.

What Phil found easiest was politely asking water to move a certain way. He was polite when he requested it do so, and it listened. If he needed to part the waters of the stream, he could. If he needed to dry his hair, he could. If he needed water to stay out of his lungs, he needed only ask, and the water would obey as long as Phil was seen as an ally to it. As a consequence, Taneli spent little time helping Phil hone this. It seemed unnecessary to focus on a power that needed no strengthening.

He also learned more about the Forest and what could be found there. Although Taneli avoided speaking of some creatures, others he would cover in exhausting and enthusiastic detail. He broke down the family trees of some types of nymph, but passed over others. He spoke of the tiny gnomes and gnomelikes, like the helpful Brownies and violent Redcaps. He described Ettins briefly, but Phil, horrified, asked him to stop.

He spent nearly twenty years visiting Taneli for lessons, growing not just in age but in ability. Taneli, however, never seemed to get any older. Phil remembered their first conversation, in which Taneli dodged the question by calling Phil “clever,” and opted not to press for an answer.

One day, when Phil was well into adulthood and his skills had begun to plateau, it seemed that Taneli could teach him no more. The Druid explained that he was limited in his knowledge, not being a water fae himself. To learn any more, Phil would have to find those with the correct expertise to teach him.

Which meant he needed to cross the stone bridge.

“But you always told me never to cross it,” Philip, now nearing thirty years old and well past his years of superstition and childlike fear, protested.

“I know,” said Taneli, sitting down at his old wooden table and facing Phil. “And the reason I agreed that you should not cross it was because you would not have survived there if you had.”

“But now I will?”

Taneli shrugged. “You have a chance now.”

“That’s not very encouraging.”

“It’s more of a chance than anyone from this side of the bridge usually has. You see, the Forest is full of magical things. They’re wondrous things, to be sure, but they can also be terrifying and dangerous. You, young Philip, are equipped to handle those things in a way no one else is.”

“You say that like I’m somehow destined for this,” Phil said, his shoulders slouching. “All I did was listen to you talk for eighteen years.”

“You also watered my flowers and boiled my tea,” Taneli said with a smile.

“And I suppose tea is enough to save the world?”

“Of course it is! You’ve had good tea, you know the power it has.”

Eventually, Philip resolved to meet his destiny in the Forest, whatever that might be. He prepared as best he could. He packed some food and his bulkier supplies in a bag to be slung over his shoulders, while smaller tools and medicines found homes in the pockets of a custom-made cloak that he and Taneli sewed themselves. He brought his journal along, by now full of notes on Fae creatures, what spells he needed to hone, which plants could be eaten or used for medicine, and vague directions on how to find the stone bridge and return to the mortal world.

Having learned and packed all he could, he stood facing the stone bridge, the Druid a few paces behind him.

“Why can’t you come with me?”

“This is  _ your _ journey, young Philip.”

“But I have no idea what I’m doing. I’ll be lost without you.”

“You will not,” Taneli responded simply.

Phil gulped, setting one foot onto the stone. His heart pounded in his chest, and he could feel it in his wrists and neck and hear it in his ears and see it behind his eyes.

He put another foot down in front. He was on the bridge now. Standing in the doorway between this world and another.

“You  _ are _ ready, young Philip,” Taneli called.

Phil looked over his shoulder at the old man. “You’re certain?” he asked earnestly.

“I wouldn’t have told you to go if you weren’t,” Taneli replied. “If you do not go, you will never be anything more than what you are now.”

“And what’s wrong with that?”

Taneli shrugged. “Nothing. But I know you well by now. I know you want more for yourself. And that means you must do more. Try new things!”

Phil nodded and faced forward again, trying to summon as much determination as he could.

He took another step. Then another.

Then three more quick steps, then a dozen more steps at a light jog and… he was over. He’d crossed the stone bridge that everyone had always told him to never, ever cross.

He looked back over the river, and the Druid was no longer there.

***

Not knowing precisely where to go, Phil was left with nothing but to meander around the forest, tying red ribbons around notable trees he’d already seen. In retrospect later, he would say he was perhaps a bit overzealous with the ribbons. He made as much ground as he could in the cool, dark night before needing to find a suitable place to camp. He looked around for longer than he’d have liked before finding some overhanging branches and enough of a clearing to make a stone circle and prepare a small fire pit. He used his cloak as a blanket and slept soundly, though not entirely comfortably, by the warmth of his fire. 

The next morning, it was hours before Phil was awakened by the cloud-covered sun. There was little brightness reaching him, but the warmth of the forest made his cloak heavy and uncomfortable. Normally, in such weather, there would be enough humidity in the air that Phil could harness it and transmute it into potable water to cool himself. But he felt none of the typical sticky heaviness of humid air. This struck him as unusual -- all this green, this heat, and those clouds, and scarcely any humidity?

The lack of moisture in the air did not stop Phil from feeling quite gross after sleeping on the forest floor. One arm was covered in dirt, leaves from the overhead branches had fallen on his head, and he’d squished some sort of purple fruit under himself at some point during the night. He wondered if he smelled like breakfast to some previously-thought-herbivorous fae creature.

Packing up his things to continue walking, he wondered which direction he should go. For now, his only goal was ‘away from the red-tied trees I’ve already seen.’ He briefly entertained the notion of following the sun in the morning and walking away from it in the afternoon, but he realized he wouldn’t know exactly when to switch from one to the other and dismissed it. He shook his head at himself.  _ Water magic or no, _ he thought,  _ I’m far too much of an indoor person for a journey like this. _

After hours of walking and tying trees up in red, he heard the sound of trickling water. It was faint, probably distant, but it was something he could follow in search of a village of water fae (or at least use to bathe). Feeling relief crash over him, he ran in search of the source of the sound.

The stream was not as distant as he expected, but instead it was very narrow, the water moving at a very calm and steady pace. Off in one direction, there was a modest waterfall feeding the stream from somewhere above. It was tall enough for him to stand under. He smiled and marched dutifully toward it.

To say it felt nice to bathe was an understatement. It had only been one day since he entered the forest, but it felt like a week at least. He hummed a jaunty, sweet tune as he let the water fall all over his still-clothed body. He noted the amount of dirt on his sleeve, though, and removed it. He knelt down in the water and began to scrub with his hands, wishing he had some kind of soap or perfume but glad he could at least clean off the worst of it. Once his shirt was clean, he laid it on the grass next to the water and used some rudimentary magic to dry it. His trousers were a complete disaster, so he removed them to wash them next, ducking down so the water was chest-high and his modesty was protected. Luckily, this meant he could see what he was doing more easily.

“Water fae!” a voice said.

Phil paused and looked up with a start, but saw no one. “Hello?” he called, still scanning the area cautiously.

A curious-looking boy with brown hair in wide curls peeked out from behind a tree. “I’m… I’m sorry,” he said politely, his breathing a bit labored. “I was just… I’m just so happy to see you here.”

Phil chuckled nervously. “I think maybe you’ve mistaken me for someone else. I’m… uh… I’m new here.”

The boy’s smile did not budge. “I know,” he exhaled. “You’re the one who’s meant to save us!” The boy emerged excited from the trees and into the light. Phil could see that he had two small antlers on the top of his head, barely grown in. He had no hooves though, only human feet. A dryad, Phil realized — his first faerie creature! He felt proud of this milestone.

But he was too stunned to reply to what the boy said. Was there some sort of prophecy about him? Or perhaps that damned Druid had been gossiping with the Forest fae for years. Either way, Phil was rather put out by this sudden great destined responsibility he had.

“Erm… what?” Phil slowly stood, holding his trousers in front of him

“You’re the half-undine boy who’s going to bring the water back! Or… well, I guess ‘man’ is a better word.” The boy looked Phil up and down, his eyebrows lifting slightly. Phil realized he’d let his hands fall to his sides and his trousers were no longer doing anything to hide his bits from the stranger.

“Oh god,” Phil stammered, hurrying to cover up again. In his pink-faced panic, he covered his front, but turned around and attempted to duck away, which served to do nothing but show the dryad boy his backside.

The dryad smirked. “You’ve nothing to be ashamed of,” he said. “It’s quite nice. Puts some of the fauns I know to shame, really!”

“Can you please not?” Phil said over his shoulder, his splayed fingers doing little to hide his rear.

“I’m sorry,” the dryad said, staving off the last of his laughter. “Look, I’ve already seen everything so maybe just take a breath, turn around, and let’s talk.”

Phil thought for a moment. The logic was sound, he supposed. What was the point in trying to hide any of his more sensitive parts at this point? He did as suggested, taking a breath. Once he was facing the dryad, he slowly walked up to the edge of the water where he could dry his trousers off and get dressed. As he did so, he gazed at the dryad with suspicion and, to some degree, appreciation. Seeing the boy closer and in broad daylight, he was angelic. He wore loosely-draped sheer fabric, barely hiding his thin but lightly muscled body. The clothes had been constructed for comfort and light, easy movement, that much was clear. Phil looked at his own wrinkled, beige clothing with sudden disdain.

Not that the dryad could take his eyes off Phil, either. He was tall and slender, his skin the same color as the white foam of the crashing water under the fall. His wet black hair shone silver in the sunlight, and his eyes were just so very blue.

“I’m starting to get a bit uncomfortable with how you’re looking at me,” Phil suddenly said, knowing full well that he was doing the exact same thing and feeling guilty as soon as he said it.

“Sorry,” the dryad said quickly, averting his eyes while Phil got dressed. “My name’s Dan, by the way.”

“I’m Philip,” Phil replied. “My friends call me Phil, though.”

“May I call you Phil then?”

“That remains to be seen. Why were you watching me bathe?”

“I do apologize for that,” Dan said. “I heard you humming. Your voice was unfamiliar so I came to see who it was in my stream.”

“ _ Your _ stream? Oh god, I’m sor—”

“It’s alright!” Dan said quickly. He smirked a bit. “I promise, it’s quite alright.”

Phil suddenly felt like the two of them were on even ground. Dan had been staring at him, but he’d been staring at Dan, and he’d been bathing on his property on top of that. He sighed. “You can look now,” he said.

Dan looked back towards Phil. As he expected, Phil’s clothing and hair were fully dry. He looked at Phil with wide, innocent eyes, appearing reverent and yet calm.

“You really can save us,” Dan said, his voice a whisper.

“Why do you keep saying that?” Phil said. “About saving you?”

“Because,” Dan said matter-of-factly, “that’s why you’re here. We’ve been waiting for so long, and things have gotten so much worse all of a sudden... But now you’re here, and now you can save us!” He sounded relieved, like someone who, after waiting for a loved one to return, was finally in their arms again. He’d been afraid and lost, but now everything was going to be okay.

Phil let the weight of Dan’s tone rest on him for a moment. He was still learning — how was he supposed to save anyone?

“But I’m not here for that,” Phil said slowly, shaking his head. His eyebrows lifted sadly. “I’m only here to learn. I… I never had any fellow water fae to learn from. I’m here to find them so I can get better at… you know… all this water stuff.”

Dan looked at Phil very seriously. “It makes me sick to tell you this, Philip,” he said, “but there’s no one here for you to learn from.”

The color drained from Phil’s face. “What?”

***

It was dark. The stars were out. Normally, the safety of the darkened sky would feel energizing and Phil would feel energetic in the freedom of the quiet night, but now he felt empty. Alone. The sound of the stream flowing nearby was the only calming force in the face of what he’d just learned from Dan. 

The stream had once been a great, wide river. This bit of woods had been much greener. Marshlands within the mounds of the forest were now flat plains, lakes were now ponds. For years, as water dried up more and more, the water fae fought to keep it around, but they slowly disappeared. And aside from the nearly-powerless naiads watching over what remained of the water, the water fae were gone from this place, and no one was sure how long the naiads had left before they were gone too.

The gravity of this did not hit Phil immediately until he realized that, on some level, he’d been hoping to find his mother out here somewhere, alive and well somehow. He hadn’t given that hope any room at the front of his mind, but it had been there, hiding in the corner and hoping to eventually be invited out for full consideration and imagining. But now, Phil was mourning the death of that hope.

The greater water fae — including the undines — were gone now. Including his mother.

Now Phil’s eyes were shining and distant, the fire flickering inside them.

Dan was staring at the fire as well, but with a much more alarmed face. “That thing makes me really nervous can you maybe… can you maybe make it stop?”

Phil’s voice was flat and unreadable. “Don’t worry, I can dowse it if it catches outside the circle.”

Dan took a breath in, then proceeded to ramble nervously without pausing. “Yeah but it’s really making me nervous okay I just got done telling you that there’s not enough water in this forest so maybe can you just be polite to the trees and put the fire out  _ please _ ?”

Phil, sighing and rolling his eyes, collected some water from the stream into a ball in the air and brought it over to the fire. He let the glob of water hover over the fire for a moment before dropping it unceremoniously onto the fire, reducing it to a pile of wet ash, a smoky tendril of steam, and a quickly dissipating hissing sound.

“There.” Without the fire holding his eyes and attention, Phil was now unwittingly back in the real world. 

Dan looked at Phil with concern. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I um… I’ve lost my mother too. Decades ago. When… when the Forest began to dry up, she… her tree died. So…”

“I’m sorry,” Phil said earnestly, noticing how hard it was for Dan to say the complete phrase “she died.” He thought it would be a long time before he was able to say it, too.

Dan shrugged. “I’ve grown used to life without her. She taught me a lot about communicating with the Forest before… before everything happened. So I’m pretty lucky I guess. I can at least feel how the Forest feels. Can’t will the trees to do anything though.”

“Apologies if this question is a bit presumptuous,” Phil said, “but hasn’t your father taught you anything more?” Phil asked.

“No,” Dan said, an amused smile on his face. “He can’t teach me that stuff, he’s the Anthousai.”

“The what?”

“The current Anthousai. He’s not a dryad, he’s a flower nymph. The latest in the royal line.”

“Royal— what?”

“He’s the king,” Dan said, rather dismissively. “He rules the forest.”

Phil sputtered. “You’re telling me I’ve been talking to a prince this whole time!?”

Dan snickered. “Oh god, please don’t call me that.”

“My apologies, your grace!” Phil got down on one knee and bowed his head.

“What the everburning sun are you doing?” Dan said.

“Um… bowing?”

“For Dana’s sake, get up. You look ridiculous.”

“Do you… do you not do that here?” Phil said, slowly returning to his normal sitting position.

“Oh, we do,” Dan replied. “And if you ever run into the Anthousai you’d better do exactly that. It’s just that… my dad and I don’t exactly… get along.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway,” he said, “he can’t help me with any of my forest magic. That was always my mother’s thing. He taught me a lot of flower magic though. I might look more like a dryad, but my skills with flower magic are much more practiced.”

“What can you do?” Phil asked.

Dan smiled. “D’you want me to show you?”

Phil nodded eagerly. He was going to see magic -- real fae magic! Finally! 

Dan couldn’t help but laugh at Phil’s eagerness. “Okay, but it’s nighttime right now, so my power isn’t all it could be, so don’t expect much.”

Phil watched with rapt attention as Dan raised one hand towards a tree next to where they were sitting.

At eye-level, Phil spotted a white bud growing out of a thin green vine wrapping around the trunk of the tree. It suddenly bloomed in full, starting a chain reaction of flowers blooming all around it. Small white blossoms traced lines in the trunk of the great tree, reaching like tendrils of smoke toward the boughs and leaves above, making a trail to the branches over Phil’s head. Phil looked at Dan and smiled, but then Dan smirked cleverly and made a quick fist with is raised hand. Phil looked back up above him, and the flowers shed their petals which scattered around Phil, landing in his hair and on his shoulders like snow.

“Beautiful,” Phil muttered.

Dan smiled, glad he could cheer Phil up.

“Yeah,” he muttered.

***

The next morning, the clouds that had been overhead were now accompanied by flashes of lightning and crashing thunder. Dan and Phil walked through the forest under the deep gray sky together now, following the stream as best they could in the hopes of finding at least a Naiad enclave of some sort. Dan had explained that it was safer for them to walk during the day, but they were more likely to run into water fae of any sort at night due to their moon affinity. Phil was fortunate; the moon was nearly full these days, and Naiads would be easier to find. If they were still around at all.

“It seems like it so badly  _ wants _ to rain,” Phil observed, his eyes to the sky, “but it can’t.”

“That’s it exactly,” Dan replied. “The clouds above the forest are as much a part of the Forest’s soul as the trees are, and I can tell they long to fall like rain on this place. And you’re right -- they can’t. I’ve tried to ask why they can’t, I’ve tried for years. But they don’t know. Either that or I can’t understand their answer at all.”

“So you can talk to the Forest?”

Dan shrugged. “Sort of. Like I said, I can feel what it’s feeling, and I can get these sort of… concepts, I suppose. Ideas. But I can’t ever get specifics. Not like my mother could.”

“Is it because your mother was only able to teach you how to read the emotions?”

“No, Forest empathy is innate. No amount of training can make it better the way it can improve manipulation of the trees. It’s because I’m only half.”

Something occurred to Phil. “Hey, do you have a tree of your own?”

Dan chuckled. “Of course I do!”

Phil frowned.

Dan cleared his throat, embarrassed. “Sorry,” he said quickly. “I forget you’re not from round here. Yes, I have a tree. I couldn’t exist without one. It’s my tie to the forest, and I am its caretaker.”

“Could I see it?”

“You already have,” Dan explained. “Remember when I caught you naked under my waterfall?”

Phil blushed at the memory. “Yeah.”

“It was the big oak growing by the water. The one thicker around than two of me.”

“Oh!” Phil said, his eyes lighting up. “I definitely remember that tree. It’s beautiful.”

Dan smiled. “Thank you,” he said. “That actually means a lot to hear. It’s harder taking care of it these days.”

“I’d imagine.”

***

“Wait here,” Dan whispered at one point. “And duck down.”

Slightly alarmed by Dan’s sudden command, Phil did as he was told, not having any idea what else to do and acknowledging that Dan probably knew better than he did. They’d reached an impassible part of the stream’s shore earlier, and had taken a detour. They were now much too far away to hear it, and Phil felt quite lost indeed. Dan seemed to know exactly where he was going though, so Phil was helpless to do anything but follow and continue tying red ribbons around the trees (though more sparsely now, as he was already running out). 

Dan crept through the wood ahead of them, looking from side to side. Phil resisted the urge to call out and ask Dan what he was doing. Instead, he just watched intently as Dan seemed to be looking for something. Had he sensed a wicked fae presence of some sort? A redcap or some such? Phil’s brow furrowed with concern.

“Come out now,” Dan said quietly. “I know you’re hiding. You’re not getting me this time.”

_ This time? _ Phil thought.  _ There were other times?? _

Suddenly Dan grabbed at nothing as though snatching a bug out from the air. Phil looked closely to see a tiny creature with an adorable pink face struggling in Dan’s grasp. Phil gasped - was Dan the wicked fae all along??

“Now, now, Daphne,” Dan said, glaring playfully at the tiny humanoid in his hand. “You know better than to try and trick me in my own neighborhood.”

“Oh, you’re no fun at all!” the tiny creature — Daphne — squeaked out.

“Who put you up to it?”

The creature pouted. “Artie.”

“Again!? You know she’s just messing with you.”

“Yes but it’s so fun when a trick actually works!” Daphne suddenly disappeared in a puff of sparkling smoke and then reappeared in the air in front of Dan’s face.

Phil was able to get a good look at her now. She was a pixie of some sort, her visible skin pink but partly covered by leaves that seemed to grow out of her skin. Her hair was made of tiny vines dangling down and pulled into a braid.

“Unfortunately for you,” Dan said, “I’ve got a guest with me that I need to protect, so I’m on my guard. Nothing is getting past me today. I could tell that cave was fake from a mile off.”

Dan was pointing vaguely into the distance, and only then did Phil see what had caused Dan’s initial alarm. And not without effort - only when squinting did Phil notice the dark patch that was, quite possibly, an actual mile away from where he stood.

“Oooh, a guest?” Daphne said excitedly, flying in a quick circle in the air. “Where? Who is it?”

“Phil!” Dan called. “You can come out, it’s okay.”

Phil emerged and approached carefully, though not especially slowly. He didn’t want to cause offense by appearing unduly afraid of a tiny pixie creature.

“Hello,” Phil said.

“Phil, this is Daphne. She’s a wood sprite. Well, a wood nymph specifically.”

Phil chuckled. “Where I come from, there’s a bug called a wood nymph.”

Daphne crossed her arms and glared at him. “Where I come from there’s a bug called Phil!” She stuck her tongue out.

Dan laughed. “He means no offense, Daph. You’ll have to forgive him. He, er…” Dan leaned in and whispered loudly as though telling a great, juicy secret. “He’s from the other side of the bridge.”

“Oh!” Daphne said, her eyes wide. “Is he one of those who cook?!”

“Yes,” Dan said with a smile. “He is indeed.”

“You daredevil you!” Daphne said to Phil, her tone disturbingly flirtatious. “Lighting fires like that? Just to make food taste different? So audacious!”

Dan looked at Phil somewhat apologetically. “Sorry, she… she’s… sort of got a thing for bad boys.”

Phil looked at himself, confused. How anyone would ever,  _ could _ ever describe him as a “bad boy” was entirely beyond his understanding. 

“I… don’t even know where to begin with how confused I am.”

Dan looked at Phil, somewhat lost himself. “You  _ are _ one of the people from the other side of the stone bridge. The only ones who cook their food. I know you are, I’ve… I mean… that’s where your people come from. That’s who you are.”

“Well… I mean… I’m human, if that’s what you mean?”

“Yes, that’s what  _ you _ call yourselves. But we know you as Those Who Cook. Literally no other creature in the world does that, so when we first encountered you, that’s what we called you. It served as a warning to not let you into the forest, too, since… you know. Fires and all that.”

Sudden realization dawned on Phil. “Oooh,” he exhaled. “Of course! In a forest as dry as this one, our habit of cooking our food is really dangerous, isn’t it?”

Dan made a fake-smile face at Phil that said “of course, you idiot” and nodded stupidly.

“Oh god, I’m sorry,” Phil said, suddenly sounding very embarrassed.

“Don’t be,” Dan said, chuckling. “I mean, fire is dangerous for you guys too. If it didn’t  _ really _ help food, you wouldn’t do it.”

“I want to know what cooked food is like!” Daphne said excitedly.

“Maybe someday,” Dan said. “Right now, that’s a bit… precarious.”

Daphne pouted.

“In the meantime, you can come with us,” Dan added. “It’s not like you’re a huge burden to bring along. At some point he’ll probably cook  _ some _ thing, and I’d feel bad if you missed that.”

“Really?”

“Sure!”

“Oh I’ll be the best companion, I promise!”   
  


“Okay, but, like… shut up, okay?”

Daphne nodded excitedly and put one hand over her mouth to promise she’d be quiet.

***

“The undines were the first to go,” Dan was explaining. “They were the most powerful, so they were the first in line to try and stop whatever was making the water disappear. They were the most exhausted, so… they were the most vulnerable.”

Phil nodded. “So there wasn’t much hope of finding my mother to begin with, was there?”

Dan made a guilty face. “Probably not. I’m… I’m really sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Phil said with a shrug.

Dan didn’t reply.

Daphne, all this while, was staring at the flames licking the bottom of the onions and grouse that Phil had skewered and hung over the fire.

“It looks different,” she noted, her eyes wide with fascination at the cooking food. Her voice came out slow, but with a high pitched, like she was hypnotized by this fascinating discovery. “The color changed!”

Phil chuckled. “Yes, that’s part of what fire does.”

“What else does it do?” she said, utterly mystified.

“Honestly, I’m not completely sure. I mean… I know it makes it safer for humans to eat. For us, eating most kinds of animal flesh is dangerous unless we cook it.”

“Dangerous how?”

“It can make us sick.”

“That’s no fun. Sounds like your bellies are awfully weak!”

“Daphne, be nice,” Dan scolded her.

Phil just laughed though. “Honestly, she’s not wrong! I wish we didn’t have to cook our food. It would make things much simpler. I’ve never been a great cook, to be honest.”

“What makes someone good at cooking?” Daphne asked.

“It’s easy to cook food too long or too hot, which makes it dry. It’s not very delicious anymore. It’s also easy to overseason food. My dad always makes the venison really dry and way too spicy!” Phil made a disgusted face at the thought of his father’s atrocious cooking.

Daphne folded her arms thoughtfully. “Wouldn’t fire eventually just turn the food into charcoal? What if you’re cooking the flavor right out of it?”

Phil chuckled. “Well yeah, that can happen. But only if you’re not paying attention! Or if you leave it too close to the heat. See how high above the flame the grouse is?”

“Yeah.”

“That means I can cook it slower and keep it from drying. And the onions on either side? Their flavor will cook into the grouse and add a little pop to it.” Phil punctuated the word “pop” with an odd hand motion, touching his fingertips together and then spreading them out quickly.

“Pop?” Daphne asked, confused.

“Yeah, you know… pop!”

“Have  _ you _ had the humans’ cooked food before?” Daphne asked Dan.

“A few times,” Dan replied. “I’m no good at making it myself, but I’ve partaken before.”

“Is it worth the work?” she asked.

“Oh yes,” Dan said. “I’m very much looking forward to this. Of course I’m still scared Phil here is gonna burn the entire forest down…”

“We’re right next to the stream!” Phil said defensively. “I’ll put the fire out if it looks like it might get out of control, I keep telling you that. Besides, that’s what the rocks around the bottom are for. They’ll keep it contained.”

“I mean, fine, if you say so,” Dan laughed. “But Daphne, I promise, that’s going to be the best grouse you ever had.”

“I’ll believe it when I try it,” Daphne replied, no true doubt measurable in her tone.

With an assured smile, Phil extracted some plants from his bag. “Dried rosemary,” he said.

“I know what dried rosemary is,” Daphne said. “Does your memory need help or something?”

“Hm?” Phil said quizzically, confused at first. Then he recalled learning that rosemary’s magical uses included the augmentation of one’s mental capacity. “Oh! No, it’s just for flavor and smell.”

“You use it  _ just _ for flavor?” Daphne asked. “You humans are weird! Do you have any idea how powerful that stuff is!?”

***

Daphne was awake far too long that night. While Dan tried to sleep, she was buzzing all around Phil’s head, excitedly asking him about everything he knew how to cook. Dan was awakened by her excited prattling at one point in the night, and saw Phil practicing his water magic. It was all magic Phil already knew, but he was trying to keep his skills intact. Dan watched as Phil lifted up great columns of swirling water and then tried to ease them back down again; most of the time it worked, other times the water splashed back down heavily. When Phil attempted to conjure a water elemental, he’d get as far as the shape of it without being able to give it any life.

“Daphne, I’m trying to concentrate!”

“Oh, sorry,” Daphne would say guiltily, ducking behind a flower or a rock and watching Phil experiment with the water. But after a few moments of impatient watching, she’d burst out with a question like “But why’s it called ‘mincemeat’ if there’s no minced meat in it?” and Phil would lose his focus again.

Dan chuckled quietly to himself and kept watching Phil. He was so, so glad to see Phil practicing. And without him having to tell him to, on top of it.

Phil had grown up so much.

***

Daphne, exhausted from her questioning, spent much of the next day tucked securely into the folds of fabric on Dan’s shoulder, fast asleep. It was a good thing, too, because they had to steer away from the stream again and venture into a dark, eerie part of the Forest. Dan needed to guide Phil through this area very carefully. It was getting thick and dark, and not because of leaves. The trees here were as plentiful as ever, but they were all dead or dying. The tree trunks here were all scorched black or ashen white despite still standing upright, and the dissonance made Phil uneasy. Phil could feel no water in the air here save for the cold sweat stinging the back of his neck for mere moments before evaporating. This extreme dryness prevented any fog from settling around them, so the forest floor was perfectly visible. At their feet, small animals and bugs scurried about, too swift to be seen before they hid inside a hollow fallen log or under a pile of blackened bark. Here, everything was simply  _ wrong _ . They were surrounded by invisible life and visible death, and Phil wanted nothing more than to leave.

His throat felt tight. He could not name his reason for breathing as quietly as possible except that it somehow felt like the safest thing to do. He felt like they were being watched -- no, stalked -- by something. Dan’s careful treads through the dry, noisy leaves and twigs below them told him that he was right to be as quiet as possible.

The loud sound of sudden screeching and pounding wings above them sent both their eyes suddenly upward, and their breathing was restored to something resembling normal when they saw that it was only a flock of birds suddenly taking off from the silhouetted treetops.

“I wonder what scared them,” Dan mused quietly.

It wasn’t long before they had their answer.

A low, resounding  _ thump! _ made the ground shake under them. It wasn’t enough to throw them off balance, at least not physically. But it, coupled with the distant sound of breaking wood, was enough to make them look at each other in terror. Phil was, to put it lightly, rather unnerved by the fact that Dan looked just as alarmed as he was.

_ Thump! _ The sound came again.

_ Thump! _

Dan looked around, trying to find the source of what he now knew were footsteps. It could only be one thing, he knew, but… how?

“No,” Dan muttered. “No, no no no… it’s not possible. It can’t be…”

“It can’t be what?”

“A river beast. An iker. Maybe you call it an eachy, I can’t recall, but--”

_ Thump! _

This time, the footstep was enough to make them falter a bit.

“But regardless,” Dan continued rapidly, “we’re too far from the water for it to have come here willingly. I don’t know what it would be doing he--”

_ Thump! _

The last footstep was accompanied by a frustrated roar resonating through the dead wood surrounding them, echoing off the rock faces, pulling branches from the snags that towered above their heads, and digging down into the pits of their stomachs.

“Run,” Dan said without hesitation or ceremony, and Phil obeyed.

They dashed between the dead trunks, no longer caring about the noise their footsteps made as they zoomed along the forest floor. Phil followed all of Dan’s steps, knowing that he’d have a better grasp of the right way to go. He found himself surprised by his own nimbleness as he danced an adrenaline-fueled dance through the wood. Suddenly, though, Phil tripped on an overgrown root he could have sworn wasn’t there before and landed flat on his face.

Just then, he heard another  _ Thump! _ , ever closer than the ones that had come before it. How? How was the eachy gaining on them so fast? How big was this thing!?

Frozen with fear, Phil turned his head to look behind him. The sky was entirely obscured by a mountainous figure. The lighting was too poor to see it clearly, but the creature was unmistakably huge.

His train of thought was broken by Dan suddenly grabbing Phil by the upper arms and forcing him back up to his feet.

“Come on, you idiot!” Dan yelled.

Phil nodded and continued following Dan swiftly through the forest, dodging branches and roots left and right and trying to outrun the collapsing trees behind them until they came upon a cave.

“This better not be another one of Artie’s ‘jokes,’” Dan said through his teeth. He turned back briefly and saw that Phil was falling behind. His eyes widened with fear -- he  _ had _ to keep Phil safe. “Keep up!” he growled. He grabbed Phil by the hand and yanked him forward so they were side by side, and they ducked into the cave together.

They caught their breath in the dark, rocky hollow.  _ Thump! _ They heard. They stood stock-still, watching outside, waiting to see what the eachy would do. Their breathing was strained, shallow and quiet. They didn’t dare blink.

_ Thump! _

It was loud. So very, very loud. The beast wasn’t far now.

The next step was seen, felt, and heard. A mountainous glob of mud, dry on the surface but still viscous, landed hard on the ground right outside the cave. It didn’t move for what felt like ages. The next thundering footstep didn’t happen. They waited, but it never came. The creature had stopped.

Dan and Phil stepped back slightly from the cave entrance, slowly and steadily. Phil put his hands over his mouth to stifle his breaths. What was the iker planning to do? Would it reach into the cave? Would it walk away? Would it be angry that the two of them had vanished? Was it aware of them at all?

Soon, another  _ thump! _ was heard somewhere ahead of them. Then, the enormous foot outside the cave lifted up and was gone.

_ Thump! _

_ Thump! _ A bit quieter.

_ Thump!  _ Dan and Phil exhaled.

And before long, it was gone.

“Oh my god,” Phil said, still quietly, just in case. He smiled, thankful he was alive. His shoulders relaxed, and he looked at Dan, who was smiling brightly.

“That’s quite the story to tell your friends when you get back,” Dan said.

“Hm?” came a tiny voice from Dan’s shoulder. “Wha’s goin’ on? Have I missed something?”

As Daphne sleepily rubbed her eyes, Dan just laughed.

***

They decided to set up camp for the night in the cave, which Phil was thankful for. This part of the forest was making him unspeakably nervous for reasons he couldn’t quite pinpoint. Sure, it was dark and dead and creepy, but that wasn’t it. He’d been in dead or dying woods before. Something about this place felt altogether wrong, like gravity went the wrong direction here. He thought for sure it was his imagination at first, the root that came up out of nowhere causing him to trip, but the longer he sat in this cave and thought about it, the more disturbed by it he became. His hope was that it had been a bit of misplaced mischief that would have been harmless under other circumstances.

“Dan?” he asked. “Who’s Artie?”

“Hm? Oh, Artemis?”

“Wait, Artemis?  _ The  _ Artemis?”

“What d’you mean ‘the’ Artemis?”

“The hunter?”

“You’ve heard of her?” Dan asked, genuinely surprised. 

“Yeah,” Phil answered. “I remember reading about her in school.”

“Oh no,” Dan said, rolling his eyes. “We’d better not tell her that, Daph. She’ll never let us hear the end of it.”

“No kidding,” Daphne replied.

“What?” Phil said, laughing nervously. He hated feeling like he was missing something; it was always a prelude to some sort of humiliation back home.

“Artemis is indeed a hunter,” Dan explained. “But she’s also… well…”

“A tricky bitch,” Daphne said with her tiny squeak of a voice. Phil couldn’t help but giggle at her incredibly cute profanity.

“What she said,” Dan continued. “Well, may as well ask what you know about her before I spout off a bunch of things you already know.”

“Well,” Phil said, trying to recall what he’d learned of the mythological figure in school. “She’s the goddess of--”

Before he could finish, he was interrupted by laughter from both Dan and Daphne.

“Oh, Dana, no!” Dan laughed. “Tell me that’s not really what they’ve taught you!”

“Is she not?” Phil said, with another nervous laugh.

“Far from it. Immortal, sure, but a lot of us here are. No. No, she’s just… a flirty, clever child of the Moon. Seductive, kind, knows healing plants better than anyone else in the Forest. Women of this Forest have always felt safest with her, so she’s in attendance whenever a fae child is born.”

“I would imagine she’s pretty busy then,” Phil said without thinking.

“Not really. Being more or less immortal, we don’t really need to have children very often, so birth is a big event here. Fair folk will come from miles around to see a new baby. It receives blessings from all of the wise ones, gifts from all of us who can give one. When a baby is born, it’s a miracle we don’t take lightly. Our future rests in the hands of a baby. The Forest raises it hand in hand with the fae. It’s everyone’s child until it’s grown.”

“Wow,” Phil said quietly, listening intently as Dan spoke.

“Artemis, though… she… she’s always like the kid’s playful aunt, really. She plays jokes, toughens the kid up. Turns them into very good children’s games, actually. I remember when I was very small, she presented me with a field full of butterflies, and said ‘Dan, do you see this field?’ and I said ‘Of course.’ Then she said ‘Your task is to find the one real butterfly in this field.’ I was so confused. Seemed simple enough to my stupid child brain, really. I walked up and tried to catch one, but it turned into a pixie, flew off, and changed into a different sort of butterfly somewhere else in the field. Turns out, she’d had some of her pixie friends take the job of shapeshifting for this. I found the real butterfly eventually, but let me tell you, she did not make it easy!”

“One of her favorite things to do these days is to make fake caves,” Daphne said. “She thinks it’s hilarious watching a stupid boar or somesuch run into it snout-first.”

“That’s awful!”

Daphne shrugged. “Why d’you think boars have those flat noses?” she said matter-of-factly. “But that’s also why they grew tusks. It’s ‘cause they learned!”

Phil smiled. “I definitely never learned  _ that _ in school.” He paused, playing back what Daphne had said before. “Wait, what do you mean by ‘these days’? Boars have always had flat snouts and tusks!”

“You keep missing the whole ‘immortal’ bit when I talk, don’t you?” Dan said, amused. “Well, okay, to be fair, we’re not immortal. We  _ can _ be killed. Otherwise, Mr. Mud Monster out there wouldn’t have scared me.” Dan sighed. “And the lack of water wouldn’t be a problem. But until we’re killed… we just… keep existing.”

“How… how long have  _ you _ existed, Dan?” Phil asked.

“A clever one, you are,” Dan said. There was a familiar sparkle in his eye as he spoke. “Asking the right questions.”

_ Why did that seem so familiar? _ Phil thought. He tilted his head and looked at Dan. Something about his facial expressions, how he moved… now that he thought about it...

Phil’s mouth dropped open. He couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. Although… maybe…

“To answer your question more properly,” Dan continued, interrupting Phil’s train of thought, “I don’t know. Being totally honest here. Around the three thousand year mark, I stopped bothering with the counting.” He thought for a very brief moment, doing math in his head. “Hm… you know, it might be close to five thousand now.”

“Five thousand years!?” Phil exclaimed.

Dan couldn’t help but laugh. “Imagine telling a butterfly that you live eighty whole years,” he said dreamily, a smile on his face. “And the butterfly is speechless by the very concept of that length of time. That’s about how this feels for me.”

“Wow,” Phil said, trying to readjust to reality. “Well, getting back to Artemis… she’s not a goddess? So she’s just another fae then?”

“Yeah,” Dan said. “What you call a Puck, actually.”

“Are you serious?” Phil asked, leaning in. “Like, the Puck in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’?”

“Yes!” Dan said, his eyes lighting up with recognition. “You know it?”

“Know it? The writer is one of the greatest writers who ever lived. His work captures humanity so well!”

“Well it captured us well, too. One of the most accurate things that your people have ever written about us. The Puck in the play was very,  _ very _ similar to one of Artemis’ kind.”

“Artemis is always portrayed as so… wise and caring and elegant though,” Phil said.

“I mean, that’s not wrong. She’s definitely caring, at least to other fae. Especially the girls and women, but to everyone really.”

“She really has it out for those boars though,” Daphne added. “And bats. She hates bats.”

“That’s fair,” Dan conceded. “She is a hunter, after all. And she’s definitely wise. In her case, that manifests as… tricks. Clever ruses. Traps. She’s crafty. For better or worse, she always gets her mark, and after thousands of years doing it she gets bored and… well, she can have a bit of a mean streak.”

“So the fake cave the other day, that wasn’t necessarily just for you?”

“Oh no,” Dan said, “That one was definitely for me. I’ve run into a few cliff faces in my time.”

“Dan likes to daydream when he goes on walks,” Daphne said. “Artie thinks it’s funny when she can get him to wander into things. He walks too slowly to be seriously hurt by it, but it’s funny to watch his face scrunch up when he’s mad!” The tiny wood sprite giggled and Dan playfully swatted at her.

***

It seemed like the more Phil learned about this world, the less sense it made. If Dan was immortal, or effectively so, how was his father the latest in a royal line? Didn’t that imply succession -- births and deaths over time? Was the “latest” just like the second or something, and Dan’s grandfather had been killed at some point? If so, then by who? Would Dan ever be king, or would he just be the prince of the Forest forever?

Phil was also suddenly angry about his mother. The fae, including undines, were immortal until and unless they were killed. So if the water had stayed around, she’d still be alive and well. Whoever was responsible for this, then, had killed his mother, hadn’t they? Who had the power to do such a thing? He wanted to stop them from killing any more of the faerie people, but could he possibly measure up against them if his mother, a full-blooded undine, could not?

The questions swirled around in Phil’s head to such a repetitive degree that he didn’t know which question to start with. Not that he could ask now, since Dan was fast asleep in the dark of the cave.

Phil had never been in a cave before, but he was still a bit thrown off by how utterly silent it was. No sound of dripping water, no echo of scurrying animal life within. There were no plants or moss growing. No sticks or leaves tracked inside by anything that might nest in here. No, the cave was just a hole in the rocks. Its shape told Phil that water had dissolved the rock to form this cave long ago, but that water, like most water in the forest, was now absent.

Phil pulled his cloak-blanket up closer to his face. His eyes simply would not close, which was fairly typical of him at night, so he gazed at Dan.

Despite Dan’s outwardly Dryad-like appearance, it was easy to see that Dan was half flower nymph when he slept. He looked like a flower now, relaxed and graceful and proud. Elegant. Beautiful.

The air caught in Phil’s chest slightly. It felt so very wrong to consider an immortal Prince of a world apart  _ attractive. _ And so patient with Phil’s inquisitive nature, too -- Dan seemed like a natural born teacher. And Phil rather liked that Dan didn’t seem to take anything lying down from the likes of Artemis. And yet, despite being royalty, he insisted on being treated like someone at Phil’s level.

Phil sighed, frustrated at himself for thinking this way. Yes, yes, Dan was attractive, but so what? He was still a five-thousand-year-old immortal Prince! To Dan, Phil was practically an infant. It would never work out. Nurturing a crush on an immortal fae creature was folly, to say the least.

But that didn’t mean Phil couldn’t look at Dan’s face a little longer.

Just a tiny… bit… longer… and then sleep.

***

_ But I was in a cave with no plants. _

That was Phil’s first thought when he awoke. And it was Phil’s first thought because his half-slumbering mind was trying desperately to make sense of three things: the grass tickling his cheek, the bright sunlight fighting past his eyelids, and the thick leafy vines wrapped tightly around his wrists and ankles.

Unable to reconcile his current reality with his memory of the night before, Phil’s heart suddenly began to race with panic. He swiftly blinked his eyes open, squinting in the daylight, and looked around.

He was most assuredly not in the cave anymore, and in fact he seemed to be quite a way off it since there was rushing water not two feet from his toes and living green plants all around him. The vines at his feet retracted into the ground quickly but didn’t release their grip on Phil’s ankles, and thus he was yanked sharply towards the water, his back sliding roughly on the ground.

Phil tried to claw at the ground above his head, but he only succeeded in gathering mud under his nails before the long vines extended to wrap around his fingers, creating mittens of a sort that he couldn’t get any kind of grip with.

Trying to maintain his composure, he looked at the water and focused his energy on asking it to be calm. It worked -- the water kept moving, but at a slower, more even pace -- but only for a moment. It wasn’t long before the water was rushing again. He tried again, begging this time, for it to flow more calmly. It worked again, but not for long. And this time, when the water returned to its full speed and power, the vines yanked him closer to the water again.

Phil tried to ignore the pull of the vines, narrowing his eyes and focusing on the rushing stream. He begged and begged, trying to calm it, but it resisted. It even seemed to speed up, as if in direct defiance of his will. It seemed as though a more powerful force was fighting him for control over the water. And Phil was losing. 

Unlike every body of water, large or small, that he’d ever encountered, this water would never obey him. It was listening to someone else. Someone else who wanted him dead, apparently.

He was already alarmed, but now, fear overtook him completely. He went pale. He wasn’t sure if he hoped or feared that water fae, like the ones he’d been searching for, were responsible. He didn’t have time to think about that now, though. He had to focus on getting free somehow.

He pulled at his wrists and kicked his feet, trying to free himself of the vine restraints to no avail. Giving one wrist a hard tug, he managed to get his wrist nearly close enough to his teeth that he might be able to bite at the vines, but only nearly. Attempt after attempt, he could never quite reach. He dug his heels into the ground, but the vines pulling him toward the water were always strong enough to dislodge him.

He continued struggling, grunting and yelling and trying not to cry as his ultimate fate became clearer and clearer to him: He was going to be trapped at the bottom of that water. And this was water that was definitely  _ not _ his friend. 

Somehow, despite the fact that it should be impossible, he knew… He was going to drown.

He’d inhaled water by accident before, of course. When he was shoved under the water as a child, before the water realized it wasn’t supposed to be in his lungs, Phil felt the burn of the water being someplace it should never be. He did not want to die feeling that pain. He did not want to die at all.

Maybe Dan could help. Dan was stronger than him. Maybe Dan could make these vines let go.

“Dan!!” Phil yelled. 

_ Yank. _ The vines were still pulling him down. He was inches from the water now. Phil was panting, utterly panicked and helpless.

“DAN!!!”

Phil tried to keep his breathing steady so he could listen for any trace of Dan.

Nothing.

For all he knew, Dan was still asleep and had no idea Phil was even gone. Besides, how far was he from the cave, being this close to the stream? All this yelling might not even carry far enough to reach Dan. Even awake, how could Dan possibly hear him?

Another  _ yank _ and Phil was unable to stop himself from crying.

“DAAANNN!!!” Phil cried out one last time, half-shrieking.

Still no reply.

It was hopeless, Phil thought. Dan couldn’t hear him. Dan had no idea anything was wrong, so how could he possibly help him? Defeated, Phil rested his head on the ground, closed his eyes, and gave in to his fate. He felt the water splash his toes.

_ Yank. _ Again. And then again.

Once more, and his ankles were in the water. This was it, then.

When all of a sudden Phil thought he heard a voice echoing in the distance. He couldn’t make it out, but it sounded perhaps like his name.

He opened his eyes and looked around. And he heard it again.

“....iiiiiilllll!!!!”

Phil gasped. “DAN!!” he called.

“PHIL!?!”

“Dan!! I’m over here! By the w--”  _ Yank! _ “By the water!!”

Phil looked around, but couldn’t see Dan anywhere. He heard Dan call his name again.

“Hurry!!” Phil yelled.

Phil looked out around the Forest on the other side of the water, but didn’t see Dan. Then, he felt two strong hands grab at his arms and pull hard.

“Dan!” Phil gasped, relieved to see him, to feel his hands on him, to hear his voice telling him it would be okay. Phil’s breathing finally steadied for the first time since he awoke.

“Those fucking vines don’t wanna let you go, do they?”

“No,” Phil said. Obviously.

Dan let go of Phil and ran towards the vines in the water, making them his priority. He held a hand out and the vines suddenly sprouted flowers, which immediately wilted and died. The vines dried up despite being in the water, and the rushing waves pushed them apart like they were merely dust to be rinsed away. Feeling his feet come free, Phil immediately yanked them out of the water and tried to bite at the vines around his hands and wrists. Dan rushed over to help, laughing a bit.

“It’s okay, Phil,” he said reassuringly. “I’ve got you.” He put his hand out and did the same thing to these vines, pushing them through their life cycle until they were dry and as easy to tear as paper. They fell away with ease, and Phil dusted the remains off his hands. Before he knew it, he was free. He sat up to a kneeling position and checked his hands for any wounds, but saw nothing. He flexed his fingers a bit and relished their freedom.

Dan stood up. “See?” he said. He extended a hand to Phil, whose grateful blue eyes met his own.

Phil placed a free hand in Dan’s, and Dan pulled him to his feet.

“Thank you,” Phil said quietly, still shaking off the worst of the fear. “I thought… I thought I was going to die.”

“You would have been okay,” Dan said. He put a hand on Phil’s cheek, tenderly at first -- though Phil thought perhaps it was his imagination -- and then moved his hands around Phil’s face and head, looking at him like a clumsy doctor performing a very amateurish examination. “You’re not injured, are you?”

“No,” Phil said, shaking his head and swallowing hard. “Just…”

“Just what?”

“I couldn’t control the water.”

Dan looked genuinely alarmed. “You… what? But how?”

“I don’t know. It was like someone else was controlling it, someone stronger than me. You don’t think… the water fae are still around but they’re somehow… bad now?”

Dan’s face tightened into something frustrated and confused. “No, it’s not water fae. They wouldn’t have… and even if they’d gone evil somehow, they weren’t strong enough. They couldn’t have.”

“Then what… who…?”

“I don’t know exactly. But something is very wrong.”

***

“You found him!” Daphne exclaimed upon seeing Dan and Phil approach the mouth of the cave.

Dan marched in and immediately started collecting the group’s things, eager to get out of the cave and back on their way again. “Celebration’s a bit premature, Daphne. Something’s up. I don’t know what, but I don’t like it.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I couldn’t control the water,” Phil explained, still a bit dazed and disbelieving. “In the stream, I… I was getting pulled into it by these vines that just… seemed to have a mind of their own, and… I tried to ask the water to be kind, but it didn’t listen. Something tried to drown me.”

“But… but you’re an undine, aren’t you?”

“I am. Half, anyway. And the water would listen for a second, but something else got to it. Something stronger.”

“Why would they try to drown an undine in the first place?” Daphne asked, mostly rhetorically. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Dan agreed. “Between the iker yesterday and now this, something is very wrong. Either balance is getting thrown off in a very major way, or someone is trying to send a message. I don’t know what’s going on, but either way, I’m going to need help from home.”

“There was an iker?” Daphne muttered, a bit lost. But she went ignored.

Once Dan and Phil had gathered up their supplies, Phil put his cloak and bag on his shoulders, and they walked out of the cave.

“We’re going to the castle?” Phil asked. “ _ Your _ castle?”

“Yes,” Dan said resolutely. “We need to get help from my father.”


	2. Act 2: The Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan and Phil make their way towards the castle, but the course of their immediate futures becomes far more complicated as they progress.
> 
> (generally things get pretty dark here, so tw: mentions of lots & lots of past death, near-death by poisonous plant, near-death by suffocation, non-graphic sex between two consenting adults with a very very large age difference, discussion of the afterlife)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Act II is finally done!!!! Thanks for your patience. Hopefully Act III won't take a freaking month and a half to finish x___x!!!
> 
> Thanks once again to my incredible beta elleberquist6, you are absolutely a GIFT and this fic would not be anywhere near this good without your input and edits. :D

Dan and Phil advanced through the forest without much conversation until Dan suddenly stopped, a frown carving a line in between his brows.

“I just had a concerning thought,” he said.

“Hm?” Phil replied.

“My father’s rather a lot to deal with at times. When last I saw him, his mood was… well, let’s say he was a bit tense. It might take some time to talk him into helping us out. Any questions we have, he might need a  _ lot _ of coaxing to answer.”

Phil’s eyes widened with concern. “But that means you’d be away from your tree for a long time, wouldn’t it?”

“Exactly,” Dan said. “Daphne?” he added, apparently speaking to his shoulder. Daphne fluttered into view.

“Yes?”

“Can you fly back to my oak and guard it?”

Daphne looked eager to help, but doubtful. “Sure, but… I’m just me. If something happens, what can I do?”

“Just use glamour or something to make any animals go away. That’s no problem. But if the waters get low -- and I mean dangerously low, or close to it -- get help  _ right then _ . Send the nearest trustworthy fae to find me on my way to the castle. I’ll decide what to do depending on what they tell me and when. Got it?”

“Okay!” Daphne chirped. “I won’t let you down!” She zipped away into the distance, and Dan and Phil were alone again.

“Do you think she’ll be able to watch the tree?” Phil asked.

“She’s a wood nymph,” Dan said. “That’s kind of what she does. She’s had friends to help her out before, but even by herself she’s saved my life more than once.”

“Really?” Phil asked as they began walking again. “That’s so hard to imagine. She’s like… she’s like a child.”

Dan chuckled brightly, turning his head up toward the sun and enjoying its warmth.

“Appearances can be deceiving,” he said. “She’s small, but she’s not a child. She’s got very powerful magic, and her heart is the size of the whole Forest. Even if she can be a bit insecure at times. And quite mischievous. She’s fiercely loyal to those she considers family, though. If I trust her to watch my tree while I’m gone, she will do it. When she says she won’t let me down, that is a  _ promise. _ ”

“Is it a promise,” Phil asked, “or is it a favor you’ll have to pay back?”

Dan looked impressed with him. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, my teacher… you know, the one who taught me how to use my powers? He told me favors were a big deal. That the fae basically keep ledger sheets in their minds, and they always know who owes them how much.”

Dan smiled a wide, closed-mouth smile. “We do indeed take favors very seriously here, yes,” he said. “And you’re right, I will owe Daphne for this. Dearly, too, since it’s literally my life she’s guarding right now.”

“So… one thing I’m not clear on.”

“Hm?”

“If someone saves your life, and you didn’t  _ technically _ ask for it…?”

Dan smiled more brightly. “You’re wondering if you owe me, yeah?”

“Yeah, basically. Sorry, is that in poor taste? I don’t mean to--”

“No, no, not at all! You’re new here, it’s not rude to ask something you don’t know. You’re fine. And no, you don’t owe me. Any service rendered without explicit request is a gift, and nothing is owed in return. I mean, if one of your shopkeepers shoved a bunch of raspberries into your hands, you wouldn’t be expected to toss coins at him in exchange, would you?”

Phil giggled at the mental image of throwing a penny at a rude shopkeeper’s forehead. “No, I suppose not,” he replied.

“But if you went into the shop and asked for those same raspberries and the shopkeeper gave them to you, you would absolutely be expected to pay for them. And I will definitely be paying Daphne back for guarding my oak.”

Phil nodded, and they continued walking in the dazzling sunshine. Phil felt a bit run down by the heat, but he was thankful for the ability to see where his feet were landing.

“So what’s your story, then?” he asked. 

“What d’you mean?”

“Well,” Phil clarified, stepping over a root that did not take him by surprise, “You’ve lived thousands of years, and we’ve got a long walk ahead of us. Surely you have a story or two that you can pass the time telling, especially to a baby like me.”

Dan chuckled. “You’re young, sure, but you’re no more a baby than Daphne is a child,” he said. “Hm… Well, I suppose the best place to start is the beginning, yeah?”

“Go for it.”

“Alright then. I was born five thousand years ago--”

“Or thereabouts,” Phil interjected.

“Or thereabouts,” Dan repeated in confirmation. “My mother was a dryad whose tree stood next to the water about a mile or two down the road from the castle. My father was the Anthousai -- the flower nymph King of the forest -- and when he was going for a ride one day he saw her and fell in love. They were married, she moved her tree to a spot beside the castle walls so they could be close to each other all the time, and I was born sometime after that. My mother named me after the Goddess.”

“That makes sense. I had been wondering if that was the case.”

Dan smiled. “It’s an honor to have this name, really. But it does make me feel like… I don’t know, like I have some great destiny I‘m not living up to.”

“I think you’re worthy of your name,” Phil said sweetly.

“Yeah?” Dan asked earnestly, looking Phil in the eye as they walked.

“Yeah. I mean… if you and I can find a way to bring the water back to the Forest, you’ll have saved everyone!”

“Sure, with  _ your _ powers.”

Phil shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. You found me, and you’re the one guiding me around. I couldn’t do this without you.”

Dan fought the urge to grin widely. “You’re very kind, Phil. Does anyone ever tell you that?”

Phil shrugged. “I’m only as kind to you as you deserve.”

Dan felt a warm tingle in his heart. “Thank you,” he replied quietly, trying to hide a bashful smile by watching the path ahead of them.

“So,” Phil said, getting the topic back on track. “I imagine I’m going to meet your father soon, yeah?”

“Yeah, unfortunately,” Dan grumbled.

“What’s he like? Anything I should know in advance?”

“He’s very... proud,” Dan explained. “Bit of a handful. I think he honestly tries to do the right thing, but he’s very insecure and that can make him a bit emotionally reactive. Like, he’s very jealous.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I can relate, if I’m honest, but he reacts really badly. Gets controlling.” Dan sighed, clearly trying to hold back the frustration he felt. “I mean, he wasn’t always so… volatile. When I was younger, he was very affectionate. Easygoing, mostly. One day my mother suddenly started ducking out of the castle to explore and socialize with common fae a lot more. So Father began policing her time away from the castle, like ‘be back on the castle grounds by midnight.’ That sort of thing. At first we all thought it was because she was associating with commoners, you know? So like, sure, Father was being elitist, but that’s just royalty for you. For the most part, anyway. But then we had visitors from other fae kingdoms, like proper nobility. And Mother spent time with as many of them as she could, just learning about other parts of the world. She made friends with undines from far-off oceanic kingdoms, she made friends with aurai and other desert fae--”

“Aurai?”

“Oh, yeah I never-- um. They’re wind nymphs.”

“Got it.”

“So anyway, Father got to the point where he imagined that Mother was flirting a lot. She wasn’t, at least not that I could see, but whatever. Father wasn’t having it. So the rules got stricter, he got quieter. And not like in a calm way, it was more like… like he was seething silently without telling any of us what he was thinking. It was scary, honestly.” Dan paused then, looking as though his heart was suddenly a million miles away. “He’s been even quieter since we lost her, though. Angrier, sadder… He just generally can’t find joy in anything. He’s really hard to be around without it basically sapping away all your happiness.”

“Is that why you spend so little time at home?”

“Yeah. I can’t spend too much time around him. He’s much harder to love now. I mean, he’s still my Father, and he’s there if I ever need anything. But we can’t talk the way we used to. He misses her too much, I think.”

“That’s kind of beautiful,” Phil said.

“Beautiful?” Dan said with a sneer.

“Well yeah. To be so deeply affected by someone that losing them hurts you like that.”

“I don’t see anything beautiful about that.”

“You’re not serious!” Phil said, sounding downright offended. “In all your five thousand years, haven’t you ever been in love before!?”

The question stopped Dan in his tracks. “Have I ever been in  _ love _ ?” he asked, as though it were a ridiculous idea. Still, he humored Phil by thinking back through his life. And he couldn’t think of a single time in five thousand years when he felt anything like love. Aesthetic appreciation for other fae? Sure. Sexual desire even, a few times. And he’d certainly had friends he would have done anything for. But to go so far as to call any of these “love” -- to imply that level of devotion, that depth of feeling -- was absurd. And Phil! To ask about something so ridiculous and sentimental -- how childish! Of course, Phil had always been like this -- young, naive, optimistic, idealistic. Even now, Phil was still so… very, very Phil, and to be honest Dan had come to know and trust him better than most fae. Phil was kind, after all, on top of being so youthful and curious and brave and beautiful and… oh.  _ Oh dear. _

Phil laughed nervously when Dan said nothing for quite a long time. “You’re aware of the concept, aren’t you?”

“Of course I’m aware of the concept,” Dan spat, pretending he hadn’t zoned out, and how dare Phil silently assume he had. “It’s just that my answer depends on what you mean exactly. I mean, there’s like, half a dozen different loves. Love for oneself, love of the world, love for your family...”

“What I  _ mean _ is _ , _ ” Phil said stubbornly, “have you ever loved someone like your Father loved your Mother?”

Dan accepted that he couldn’t keep dodging the question. “I’m not sure,” he said frankly.

“How are you not sure?”

Dan scoffed impatiently. “Because, Phil… that kind of love grows with time, and it gets tested, and it’s mutual. And… until quite recently, I hadn’t even  _ thought _ of another fae as, you know… possibly lovable. I guess. But it hasn’t been long enough for me to know.”

“So there  _ is _ someone?”

It was Dan’s turn to give a nervous laugh, and he began walking again. “You’re so nosy, Phil.”

***

Dan thought he heard a voice on the breeze, drifting past his ear. It felt like the Forest was speaking to him, but darker somehow. More muddled. He felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. He felt his throat tighten and his breath become shallow, and his steps became slower as he fought the urge to stop walking and listen. He had to keep moving forward. It was probably nothing, and he didn’t want to alarm Phil.

“About how long does it take to walk to the castle?” Phil asked.

“Just a week or so if we move with purpose,” Dan replied, thanking Dana above for the distraction from that disturbing feeling. “Would be more like 10 days if we moved at a leisurely stroll, but we ain’t got time for that, mate.”

“A week?!”

“Yeah,” Dan said. ”What’s wrong with that?”

“That’s such a long time!”

“Oh, don’t be like that. A week is no time at all.”

“Maybe for you, you’ve been alive for thousands of years! I’ve only been alive for thirty. Not even thirty! A week is a long time for me!”

“You’re adorable,” Dan chuckled, shaking his head. 

Phil didn’t respond.

Dan looked back to see that Phil had fallen behind. “You okay?” he asked him.

“Yeah, I uh…” Phil stammered, leaning against a tree for support as his knees buckled underneath him.

Dan rushed over to him. “Did anything bite you?” he asked, alarmed.

Phil shook his head lazily. “No, um… saw a… a flower, though. Was… was like… pff!” Phil punctuated the last sound effect with a lazy expansion of his hand from a fist to open fingers.

“A flower?” Dan asked, wrapping an arm around Phil’s midsection and trying to keep him upright. “What did it look like? Was there something like a cloud?”

“Yeah, like a puff of… um… what’s the word.”

“Spores? Pollen?”

Phil shut his eyes tight and shook his head. “No!” he whined. He opened his eyes again and tried to look at Dan, but his lids stayed half-lowered and he couldn’t focus. “No, the f… the flower…” His eyes began to slowly close and he fell clumsily to the ground in defiance of Dan’s attempt to hold him up.

“Phil!” Dan exclaimed, and knelt down. He pried open Phil’s eyes, but they didn’t react to the light. “Shit.” Without Phil to tell him what the flower looked or smelled like, it would be much harder to identify the nature of the poison so he could properly undo whatever it did. Dan looked around, wide-eyed and alert, at least at first. But he realized that whatever did this could be hours behind them already if symptoms were appearing now. He closed his eyes and breathed, trying not to let hopelessness win. Phil needed his help, so he had to stay strong. He calmly opened his eyes again and looked the way they’d come.

And he caught an unexpected glimpse of white only a few paces away.

Dan stood and quickly approached the cloud-like bundle of small blossoms, the sleeve of his robe covering the lower half of his face just in case. He narrowed his eyes and tilted his head, studying the flowering stalk at his feet. He knew without a doubt that this flower had not been here before. This was a brand new plant, and yet it was well past full bloom; dead, dry fruit was falling away from the wilting petals. Something or someone stronger than him had pushed these flowers through their life cycle as Phil walked by, and the poison from this particular flower had made its way through Phil’s system in a hurry.

Remembering Phil’s encounter with the rogue stream, the event that had started all this, Dan felt panic begin to rise in his chest. Someone or something could match their skills, and apparently they wanted Phil dead.

But, for the moment, at least Dan knew what poison he was dealing with, and thus the right way to cleanse Phil of it. He rushed back over to Phil’s side and, with a wave of his hand over the ground, brought to life two sets of flowers: a set of chervil plants, which he brought only to bud and no further; and a row of chamomile flowers. He then dug through Phil’s bag -- it wasn’t as though Phil would mind, given the circumstances -- and retrieved a metal teacup he knew Phil had packed.

He picked a few of the chervil plants, whose magic included the restoration of life energy, and crushed them between his fingers. He pulled Phil’s chin down to open his mouth and put the pulpy flower dust under Phil’s tongue. 

Then, he waited. When nothing happened, he picked a few more and did it again, grinding the flower more thoroughly in his hands first.

Still nothing.

Dan shook Phil’s shoulders, knowing the chervil should have had some effect by now. “Come on, Phil,” he said. “Wake up!”

Finally, Phil took a deep breath in and slowly opened his eyes. Dan exhaled with relief.

“What happened?” Phil asked with the deep, scratchy voice of someone who’d been sleeping for ten hours.

“You passed out. Poisoned.”

“I don’t… I don’t remember.” Phil tried to sit up, but Dan put his hand on Phil’s chest and forced him to stay down. Phil landed with a thud.

“Don’t try to get up just yet. You’re technically still dying.”

“Dying?!” Phil practically shrieked, as best he could anyway with his weakened voice.

“Yes, dying. Shut up. Anyway, your memory will come back soon enough, but for now you’re barely hanging on so chill out for a bit.”

Phil blinked a few times and gave a single, weak nod, still trying to hold on to his lucidity with both hands. “What did I get poisoned by?”

“Some sort of laurel, looks like. I got you awake again, but you’re not in the clear yet. I need you to do some basic water magic for me now, okay?”

“Okay.” Phil tried to sit up again. Dan put a hand on his chest again, and Phil fell back with a small  _ oof. _

“Not yet!” Dan said, slightly annoyed but mostly worried. “Conserve your energy. You’re gonna need it for this.” Dan picked the chamomile flowers and held them out. “Can you dry these out for me?”

Phil touched a finger to each one and did.

Dan smiled and crumbled the flowers up, putting them in the teacup. “Okay. Good job. Now’s the hard part. I need you to retrieve that water, plus however much more you need from the air around us, and boil it in this cup.”

Phil groaned. “That is really… not gonna be easy… at all.”

“I know but you need chamomile tea to clear the poison from your body. It’ll also put some protection on you. You need this.”

“I’m dying and the only cure is chamomile tea?” Phil asked, one eyebrow raised slightly.

“Well, no, it’s not the  _ only  _ cure, but…” Dan sighed and looked at Phil fondly. “Look, tea is all I really know how to make. Don’t take this away from me.”

Phil’s heart -- or perhaps his stomach, he wasn’t sure -- leapt awkwardly upward as a vague memory from his childhood resurfaced. He tried to retrieve the full memory, but found himself unable to recall more than a blurry shadow of it. Now wasn’t the time though -- his memory was a bit hazy after all, so maybe that included childhood memories. He’d worry about it later.

Once Phil was back to reality, he nodded and took a few calming breaths. He pulled some energy from the nearest ley line, knowing his body didn’t have enough energy on its own, and gathered all the water he could, slowly filling up the teacup in Dan’s hand. Dan smiled softly but proudly as Phil finished the job. Phil was panting as though he’d been running, but it was done; the teacup was full.  _ Okay, _ Phil thought.  _ So far so good.  _

“You might wanna put that down,” Phil said weakly. “Before I boil it and you hurt yourself.”

“Oh, right,” Dan said, placing the cup on the ground. Phil didn’t appear to do anything immediately, though. “Go ahead!” Dan said.

“I am,” Phil said, impatient with himself.

“Take your time, Phil,” Dan said, his voice warm and reassuring now. “You just used a lot of energy gathering up the water. Rest for a moment if you have to.”

Phil shook his head. “No. If I rest too long…” He cut himself off, not wanting to finish that sentence. “It’s like you said, I’m still technically dying and I need this.” He took a few restful breaths, then looked at the teacup intently. He shoved the fingertips of one hand into the ground to get closer to the ley energy that flowed below, and raised his other hand up toward the teacup. After a moment of quiet focus, the water began to boil, bubbling up to just under the cup’s rim. He held the boil for as long as he could, only about a minute, when his body suddenly relaxed and he sighed impatiently.

“Sorry,” he said. “Wasn’t long enough.”

“Don’t apologize,” Dan replied. “You did great. This is far better than not getting the tea at all. It just… probably won’t taste as good.”

Dan picked up the teacup, finding it warm enough but not painfully hot. He sat against the nearest tree to Phil, and put the cup down next to himself. He then reached forward to grab Phil gently and pull him close, leaning Phil’s torso up against his own so he was propped up enough to drink. Finally, Dan took the teacup into his hand and held it up. He tilted his head to the side and forward so he could look at Phil’s face. He still looked so pale. Like he’d really been dead.

“Ready?” Dan asked.

“So tired…” Phil muttered. His eyes began to close.

“No,” Dan said urgently, pulling Phil more upright. “No, you stay awake. You have to drink this right now, okay?”

Phil didn’t answer immediately.

“Okay!?”

Phil nodded.

Dan put the warm teacup up to Phil’s lower lip and slowly tilted it up. Phil drank in small sips at first, then closed his eyes and leaned into the drink, hungrily taking it in by the gulp. Dan watched as Phil drank all of the tea at once, water spilling from the corners of his mouth. Phil’s eyes opened and moved toward Dan.

Phil finished drinking, and breathed deeply as Dan lowered the cup. Color had returned to his face and his eyes were bright. He still looked tired, but only in the same way he always did when he was getting sleepy.

“You good?” Dan asked, knowing the answer but needing to hear it anyway.

“Yeah,” Phil said with a soft smile. “Better already.”

Dan smiled warmly back at him. He took the edges of Phil’s cloak and wrapped it around the front of his body. “Good,” he said. “Just relax now, wait for the tea to finish working.”

“I can lay down if you want,” Phil said. “You know, instead of leaning on you like this.”

“No, you need the warmth. It’ll help.”

“But it’s daytime,” Phil said. “It’s not like you’ll be able to fall asleep right now. What if you need to do something?”

“You’re more important.”

“But what if, like… what if you need to wee or something?”

Dan laughed. “Well, then I’ll probably put you down while I go take care of that. But don’t worry about it. You sleep deeply enough that I’m not worried about disturbing you. Right now you focus on resting, okay?”

“Okay,” Phil said sleepily, the tiniest hint of a smile on his calm face.

“Sleep well,” Dan said, planting a tiny kiss on Phil’s head.

***

Dan never did have an easy time sleeping during the day. He could do it if he needed to, of course. But, being half-dryad, he was a child of the Sun. His energy was generally higher in the daylight. Despite that, he found himself drifting in and out of a shallow but restful sleep while Phil was nestled against him.

“I’m hungry…” came a voice. It didn’t sound like someone speaking so much as a breath of wind with a feeling riding on it. 

Dan’s brow furrowed as he listened closely, but he didn’t hear it again. His first instinct was to call out to see if someone was playing a joke on him, but he resisted -- he didn’t dare wake Phil while he was still convalescing.

He wrapped his arms around Phil protectively, looking around one more time before he relaxed enough to sink into another nap.

***

_ “Hungry… so hungry…” _

The voice was hissing inside Dan’s mind again. It was louder now.

The first thing Dan noticed was the texture he felt on every bit of exposed skin -- sandy in some places, cool with moisture in a few others. Definitely dirt and soil rather than air, or even leaves, which would have been more expected. The second thing he noticed was the pressure on his chest, as though he were covered with too many blankets.

He tried to open his eyes and was immediately met with the feeling of soil against his eyelashes, so he closed his eyes again.

He was under the ground. Buried alive in the Forest. So if that voice was back, and louder now, that meant it was the Forest itself talking to him. It was the Forest that was hungry.

Trying not to panic in the pitch darkness, Dan twisted his head around out of pure instinct, trying to free himself or find some air. Eventually, he found an air pocket; whether he’d created it himself or it had occurred naturally, he didn’t know. Nor did he care. He took a slow breath, careful not to inhale any dirt, but not entirely succeeding. He knew the air pocket wasn’t going to last him long, though. He had to escape somehow. 

He twisted his body slightly to displace some of the earth around him, but it was too difficult to discern the direction of gravity based on its movement by feeling it, and he certainly couldn’t see it. He could have wriggled through the dirt, digging into it like an earthworm, but without knowing up from down, it was possible that he’d merely dig himself further into the damp soil, away from the salvation of the fresh air above.

He tried to take another slow breath, but the air pocket had mostly collapsed from all Dan’s movement. He choked and coughed as soil stuck to the back of his throat. Breathing in again out of instinct, he choked again. He was more afraid than he’d been in hundreds of years, but he held tears back, knowing that if he let any tears fall, the flowers that grew around his head as a result would likely strangle him before he could tell which way the roots were pointing and which way the stems were growing.

Part of him wanted to let it happen. Realistically, his only two choices were to suffocate slowly or be rapidly strangled by flower roots of his own creation.

Or... he could wish for Phil to find him.

So he wished. And he wished.

***

“Dan!” Phil called, practically screaming as he walked purposefully between the trees, resisting the urge to run for fear of getting further away from wherever Dan was. He paused occasionally, listening for any response. But he got none. His stomach clenched.

When Phil had awakened, he was back to full strength, the chamomile having done the trick. But the sun had begun setting, the air was cooling quickly, and the warm comfort of Dan’s body had vanished. Phil had wrapped his cloak around himself and waited patiently for Dan to return, knowing Dan would want to rest once it got dark.

That felt like ages ago. Phil was terrified now.

He cupped his hands around his mouth to project his voice and tried again. “DAN!!!”

The Forest responded only with an eerie silence that seemed almost smug.

_ It was all supposed to be so simple, _ he thought.  _ We were just going to go to the castle and get help. That was all. I wasn’t supposed to almost die twice. Dan wasn’t supposed to disappear. This wasn’t meant to happen. None of this was meant to happen. _

The forest was dark now, lit only by the bright full moon. Normally Phil would find its light so calming and lovely but now, in his solitude, he found it cast an eerie glow rather than a calming illumination on the Forest around him. Something about how the light cut through the thin, wispy clouds gave the world a greenish hue. It made the Forest look sick.

“Where is he?!” Phil yelled angrily at no one in particular. Perhaps at the moon, perhaps at himself, perhaps at the trees.

As if in response, a gust of wind suddenly hit Phil in short, staggered bursts of speed as if bumping into him by accident, pushing his cloak and hair to his left. Phil blinked to protect his eyes from the dust the wind was carrying. 

_ Is the wind telling me which way to go? _ Phil thought.  _ Or was that just a coincidence? _

The wind bumped him to the left again, more lightly this time.

He nodded to himself and turned left, latching onto this gust of wind as the only source of hope he had to hold on to. And he kept walking.

“Dan!!” he called weakly. His steps were getting heavier now. He dropped to his knees and coughed, struggling to catch his breath. His face fell, and then he saw it. 

A large, round patch of the ground under him was utterly barren -- nothing growing on it, and scarcely a dead leaf or stray rock lying atop the dry soil. He leapt to his feet and backed up to look at it. It was just dirt, obviously recently displaced. Like a fresh grave.

Hopeful and afraid all at once, Phil felt is heart leap in his chest and then plummet into his stomach.

“Dan?” he called tentatively.

And the dirt moved in the center, ever so slightly.

“Dan, yell if you can hear me! Or move! Something!”

Phil held his breath and listened. He wasn’t sure, but he swore he could hear a voice coming from under the ground for a second. It stopped suddenly.

“Dan! Is that you?!”

Silence.

Phil didn’t even pause to think. He dropped down and started digging into the soil with his hands. Surely Dan couldn’t be buried that deeply if Phil could hear his voice and see his movement. But every time Phil moved any dirt away, it filled back in as though it had a mind of its own. He rifled through his cloak to find something to dig with, but nothing there was big enough to be helpful. So he searched his bag, but found only a very small pan he’d been using for cooking. It would have to do. He shoved the pan into the ground, moving as much of the earth as he could, but over and over the soil kept replacing itself. Phil grunted and yelled and dug harder, but it was no use. Yet again, he couldn’t win against whatever was working against him.

He needed something faster and stronger. He had to move all the soil at once, or Dan was doomed.

He closed his eyes and felt the light of the moon on his face. Hands raised up to the sky, he gathered up all his energy and, with the might of his entire spirit, he  _ pulled. _ Ley energy from the ground channeled itself through Phil’s body and hands, then shot up like lightning into the sky. Every tiny wispy cloud from all over the Forest gathered together in the air above Phil, drawn in by the energy he was channeling. He compressed the clouds into one great storm immediately above the displaced soil, and pushed his hands down hard. A deluge of heavy rain descended upon the ground with no prelude.

A thick, muddy flood soaked the soil that was stacked atop Dan, and Phil channeled his power away from the rainstorm and into the mud instead. He pushed the flow backward, and watched as the retracting soil slowly revealed a pair of feet.

Holding back the urge to sob with relief lest he lose his focus, Phil pushed the mud away harder. The ground kept wanting to fill itself back in, but Phil conjured more rain from the sky with one hand while pushing the mud away with the other. Finally, he was winning.

Soon, he saw what he needed to see. Half a face, eyes closed. Curly brown hair buried in the mud. Phil gasped and mixed more soil and water under Dan’s head, pushing him up and out of the mire.

Phil relaxed once Dan’s head was no longer buried and dropped his arms, scarcely stopping to breathe before rushing to Dan. He dug his arms into the wet ground Dan was planted in, and struggled through the process of disentombing the unconscious, limp body. He finally succeeded in hoisting Dan up, and carried him as quickly as he could to a rocky cliff that, while not too high up, was high enough above the sticky, flooded soil below. Then, exhausted, he lay Dan gently upon the ground.

But as he did, he noticed that Dan’s chest wasn’t moving. Phil held a hand close to Dan’s nose, and felt no air movement there.

“No,” Phil muttered. “No, no no no…”

Phil put a hand to Dan’s chest and felt for a heartbeat. He was glad to find one there, although it felt slow. At least, it did to Phil, though he didn’t know what was normal for a full-blooded fae. Dan was definitely alive, though. Phil knew that much at least.

Phil opened Dan’s mouth and saw mud in the back of Dan’s throat. He fished as much of it out with his finger as he could. With a monogrammed handkerchief from one of his cloak pockets, he cleared dirt from Dan’s nose and ears.

“Wake up,” Phil mumbled all the while. “Please, please wake up, please…”

Dan showed no signs of awakening. Phil checked again, and Dan’s heart was still beating at its slow, steady pace. Perhaps, Phil thought with some relief, Dan’s functional immortality meant he’d take longer to suffocate than a human would.

“Okay,” Phil whispered to himself, trying to reassure himself and maintain focus. “Okay let’s try breathing for him then, yeah? Yeah. Okay.” Phil inhaled slowly, exhaled slowly, inhaled one more time, and then placed his lips against Dan’s. He pushed a breath out and into Dan’s lungs, and then pushed down on Dan’s chest to try and get the air moving.

Nothing happened, so he tried breathing into Dan’s mouth one more time.

He had no idea if this would work. It felt like something a well-meaning and unsuspecting child would try as a theory for explaining how “true love’s first kiss” could have worked in bedtime stories like  _ Snow White. _

He tried it again. Still nothing.

He tried one more time. He was beginning to feel foolish. He felt like crying --  _ this _ ridiculous idea was his last resort? But it had to work. It just  _ had _ to. Phil literally had nothing else.

So he tried one last time.

When again nothing happened, he sat down on the hard ground next to Dan’s lifeless body and finally stopped resisting the urge to weep.

_ This is where we end, _ Phil thought.  _ It’s over. Everything. _

But right then, Dan emitted a thick, wet, gurgling noise. He rolled onto his side, mud flowing out of his mouth like vomit until he was able to properly breathe in. Although doing so automatically meant coughing very, very hard immediately afterward.

“Dan!?” Phil exclaimed through tearful eyes, his face brightening.

Dan replied only with sickening gagging and hacking noises that were absolutely awful to listen to, but they meant Dan was alive so they were the most beautiful sounds Phil had ever heard.

“Sweet Dana above, that hurts!” Dan choked out.

Phil laughed with relief.

“Fuck you, this isn’t funny,” Dan said, finally starting to breathe normally again. He looked Phil in the eyes and, seeing his face again, felt calm overtake him. He was alive, and Phil was here. Everything was alright.

“You’re okay,” Phil said.

Dan nodded. “Getting there, yeah.” He coughed loudly, hacking out more mud. That was the last of the worst of it.

He lay on his back, feeling dizzy. He kept still and tried to breathe. The feeling of actual air entering his lungs was more than refreshing, more than heavenly. He looked over at Phil, who still looked concerned, and gave him a tiny reassuring smile, but then noticed a dark smudge across Phil’s lower lip. Dan’s brow furrowed, and he smirked.

“What?” Phil asked.

“Did you kiss me?” Dan asked.

“No! I-- no, I would not do that. You were… you know… sort of… a bit dead! That’d be horrifying! Kissing you when you were halfway dead. What’s wrong with you? What a ridiculous question.”

Dan laughed a little, which led to some coughing. The taste of dirt in Dan’s mouth caused him to make a face and gag slightly. “Ugh,” Dan said. “I’m going to be spitting out dirt for a week.”

“Better than being properly dead,” Phil said.

“Yeah,” Dan replied, looking into Phil’s eyes again. “I’d have hated that.”

“Even if there’s an afterlife?”

Dan nodded. “Especially if there’s an afterlife. Would have been pretty shit to be there without you.”

Phil’s expression softened as his heart swelled with affection and calm. All he could think to say in reply was, “Oh.”

Dan slowly propped himself up, and Phil quickly put a hand on Dan’s back to help support him. As Dan scooted off to one side, to lean against a tree growing against the rocks, he coughed a slightly drier and quieter cough.

“Sounds like it’s getting a bit better,” Phil asked, handing Dan the handkerchief he’d been using.

Dan nodded and idly wiped some of the dirt off his face. He rocked his head back against the tree and looked up at the starry sky. There were no clouds at all. That was unusual. His eyes narrowed.

“Phil?” he said.

“Hm?”

“How did you do that?”

“How did I do what?”

“I’m alive. I shouldn’t be. There’s no reason why I should be. How did you find me? How did you get me out of… wherever I was? And why am I breathing?” Dan coughed again, then gave his lips another lazy swipe of the handkerchief. “Well, ‘breathing’ is a stretch maybe.”

Phil chuckled. “I… I don’t know how I found you, honestly. I was just wandering around. I had nothing to go on. I resorted to following a gust of wind because what else was I going to do? And then I found where you were, I could see that the dirt was fresh, and then I thought I heard your voice. So I went to dig you out, but…”

“But?” Dan asked, listening intently as he wiped off his arms.

“I couldn’t. I’d dig and dig but it was like the dirt kept running to get back to where it had been. I couldn’t move it fast enough. I needed something better than just my hands. So… so I flooded the ground to get you out.”

Dan smiled and looked at Phil. “Is that where all the clouds went?”

“Ah… yeah. I’m… I’m sorry about that. I just panicked, and--”

“Don’t be sorry!” Dan said. “Phil, that’s incredible! You really… I’m just… I’m so proud of you.”

“I mean… thanks, I guess,” Phil chuckled shyly. “I don’t know if I can do it again though. I barely even remember doing it! It was like… all I could think about was doing everything I could to save you, you know?”

Dan nodded. “I’ve felt that way before. The desire to protect someone else often brings out the best in us.”

He spoke as though from experience. Phil made a mental note to ask about it later, once Dan had an easier time breathing.

“I… I’m starting to think that…Erm.” Dan hesitated. “I… need to tell you something.”

“What?”

Before Dan could respond, an arrow whizzed by his head and stuck into the tree behind him. Phil gasped and turned around, looking for the source of the threat. He saw nothing. Alarmed, he looked at Dan, who appeared utterly unaffected.

“Artie,” Dan said loudly, his tone impatient. “I am in no fucking mood, okay? I have had a  _ day _ …”

A throaty laugh sounded from somewhere… not behind Phil. Perhaps off to the side somewhere? Well, it came from somewhere, in any case.

“I can see that,” said a voice matching the laugh. “You look a mess.”

Dan tried to mask his self-consciousness as he glanced down at his dirty robe. “Just come out, please? I really don’t have the energy to deal with this.”

“I’m not playing with  _ you, _ ” said the voice. “I’m playing with your new boyfriend here. He fancies himself your bodyguard. It’s positively  _ darling. _ ”

“I’m not afraid of you!” Phil said defensively.

The voice laughed again. “Oh, Dana’s crown! He’s a plucky thing, isn’t he?”

“Take my advice,” Dan said quietly to Phil, “just throw something. Anything. Doesn’t matter what.”

“But I won’t hit her,” Phil said, pouting slightly. “I can’t see where she is.”

“I know. You’re going to hit nothing, she’ll laugh at your incompetence, and then she’ll finally show herself. She’s insufferably predictable after a few thousand years of this shit.”

“Oh, um… okay.” Phil fished into his cloak for an apple that was starting to spoil anyway, and threw it in a random direction, pretending he cared where it went.

“Ow!” the voice said, much less confident-sounding than before. Out of the shadows stepped a statuesque woman with a bow & quiver on her back and chunks of apple on her shin. “Well he’s got an arm on him, that’s for sure.”

“Artie, meet the half-undine Philip. Phil, meet the puck Artemis, skilled hunter and mother to all children of the Forest.”

“Oh, um… hello?” Phil said as though it were a question.

“Hello there, half-undine. I’m surprised to see one of your kind alive in these times.”

“He was raised on the other side of the bridge,” Dan explained.

“Ah!” Artemis said, her eyebrows lifting. “That explains that. So what are you doing here then, water fae?”

“Trying to help, I guess,” Phil mused. “I originally came here to learn how to get better at using my powers, but… yeah.”

“‘Get better’?” Artemis said, disbelieving. “I saw from a distance as you summoned every cloud for miles around to bring down a storm. That would take an unbelievable amount of power!”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Dan said. “He was poisoned not a day ago. At mid-afternoon today, he was asleep and still recovering.”

“That’s absolutely amazing,” Artemis said.

“Yeah, that’s him,” Dan said with a smirk, “amazing Phil.”

“I’m not amazing. I’m… average Phil. Making that storm to free you from the ground was… not a normal thing for me. I’ve never done anything even close to that before.”

“Free you from the ground?” Artemis asked Dan.

“I was buried alive somehow. I’d explain but I’m not sure what happened.”

Artemis nodded and turned back to Phil. “Well, Amazing Phil, you clearly have potential,” she said. “If I knew of any living water fae who could help train you, I’d take you to them, but…”

Phil nodded, understanding entirely. “Yeah.”

“Anyway, to business. Dan, the wood nymph Daphne sent me to find you.”

Dan’s face went noticeably paler than it already was -- quite pale indeed, given how pale his brush with death had made him -- but he scoffed, rolled his eyes, and spoke with an even tone. “I told her to find the nearest  _ trustworthy _ fae.”

Artemis glared at him mirthfully. “Well then, good job you were far away, thus drastically increasing her chances of finding one!”

Phil stifled a giggle.

“On a more serious note, the water levels are dropping faster than they should be. The drying is accelerating. The stream is on the lower end of its usual depth, but the waterfall is much narrower. Daphne was concerned.”

Dan gulped almost imperceptibly, obviously trying to hide his fear. “And… is my tree…”

“It’s okay for the time being,” Artemis said.

“And how long does it look like ‘the time being’ will be exactly?”

“Hard to tell. The branches look a bit tired. Some of the leaf tips are brown, but not most. Depending on how the tree looked when you last saw it, it  _ could _ be fine for awhile.”

Dan ground his teeth together as he crushed a pebble against the rocky surface beneath him, keeping his hands busy and avoiding looking at Artemis while she delivered the bad news. He could tell she was trying to put on an air of optimism despite not really feeling it. “How is the undergrowth holding up?” he asked. 

Artemis hesitated. “Not great, to be honest. Dry. Wilting. Your flowers are… well.”

“Dead?”

Artemis nodded sadly. 

Dan straightened his posture. Phil felt his whole body tense up just from watching the exchange.

“Be honest,” Dan said, now pointedly looking her in the eye as if daring her to lie. “How long do I have?”

“That depends. If things hold at their current speed, it’ll be a few months before your tree succumbs. But if things accelerate at the rate they have… two weeks, perhaps.”

“That’s… that’s it?” Dan opened his hand, dropping the pebble he’d been fidgeting with. His jaw relaxed, halting the tooth-grinding he’d been doing. His entire body seemed to settle into sorrow. Phil saw nothing but hopelessness in his face, heard nothing but mournfulness in his voice. Dan’s eyes glazed over and he stared into the middle distance, unable to fully comprehend the gravity of what he’d just heard.

“Dan…” Phil asked, “how far is the castle?”

“If we keep running into trouble like we have been,” Dan said, almost slurring his words a little, “it’ll be a lot longer than ten days before we get there.” He closed his eyes, leaned his head back, and tried to forget everything.

“Is there, like… someone who can magically teleport us there or something?”

Dan’s face scrunched up in confusion. “What?”

“You know, like… magically sending us straight to the castle.”

Dan shook his head and laughed deliriously. “Oh Dana, if only we had that kind of power here.”

“Sorry,” Phil said. “Stupid question?”

Dan smiled at him fondly. “You’re just young and hopeful. And you think creatively. There’s nothing wrong with that. Nothing whatsoever.”

Phil blinked. That feeling of familiarity was back again.

“Still,” Dan said with a grunt, adjusting his position and trying to sit independently, “we can’t teleport, but we do need something faster.”

“I know just the thing,” Artemis said with a grin. She turned away and began dashing excitedly through the forest. She suddenly stopped herself though, and quickly turned back toward Dan and Phil. “It’ll take me about a day and a half to get to them, so make as much ground as you can in the meantime.” She turned back around and continued her dramatic exit.

“To get to what?” Phil called.

“Don’t worry!” she called back. “I’ll find you!”

And then, like the fae she was, she’d disappeared from sight. Dan and Phil were left staring into the woods, wondering what on earth she was planning, and if it would help enough.

Dan coughed. “Well, now you’ve met Artemis.”

“She’s quite… interesting,” Phil said.

“That’s a way of putting it,” Dan said. He began to try to stand up, and Phil sprang to his feet to help.

“Are you okay standing?” he asked urgently.

“I’m fine,” Dan said in a slightly strained voice, placing one hand on the tree he’d been propped up against. He only needed to brace himself on it to aid in the process of rising to his feet; once he was fully upright, he dropped his hand and remained standing without much effort. He put his hands on his sides and leaned backward in a stretch that made Phil a bit nervous to watch, but when Dan didn’t fall over backward, Phil found himself enjoying the arc of Dan’s neck as his head rocked back.

Phil gulped.

Dan stood up straight once more and looked down at his filthy robe.

“I  _ do _ look a mess,” he muttered. He dusted off the front with his hand, which did nothing. He shook his head, then looked at Phil. “Avert your eyes if you don’t want to see this,” he said.

“See what?” Phil asked. His answer came in the form of Dan leisurely pulling off his robe and standing there, shamelessly nude. Phil froze, his mouth agape, while Dan held his robe out in front of himself and appeared to study it. His posture was relaxed, his body turned slightly so Phil had a good side view of Dan’s body. His alabaster skin was still mostly clean where the fabric of his robe had protected it, and the muscle definition on his torso was just visible enough for Phil to suddenly feel an anxious sort of excitement. Dan was so delicate looking in some ways, but almost intimidatingly powerful looking in others. Combined with the tiny antlers Phil could see the tops of, Dan’s unearthly sort of perfection made him look exactly like the fae creatures Phil only saw in his dreams as a boy.

Dan slowly turned his head to look at Phil. While Dan’s face wasn’t visibly flushed aside from a small patch at the bottom of one cheek, his upper chest appeared to become more pink than normal. “I’m not all that bothered by you seeing me like this,” he said, “but… you  _ are _ staring.”

“Oh!” Phil exclaimed, and swiftly turned himself around.

“Thank you,” Dan said with a nervous chuckle. 

Phil could hear the sounds of rustling fabric, and the light tapping of dry dirt against the ground.

“I promise, it’s fine, really,” Dan said. “At least now we’re even, I guess?”

Phil felt himself relax the tiniest bit.

“Well,” Phil said. “I’d say we’re far from _ even _ .”

“Oi!” Dan said. “Gloating does  _ not _ become you, water fae. Just so you know, I could totally shapeshift and make myself really impressive. I just choose not to. Out of politeness.”

Phil couldn’t help but smile and shake his head.  _ Sure, _ he thought sarcastically.

“Okay,” Dan eventually said. “I’m dressed. You can turn around now.”

Phil did, and Dan’s robe was back to being almost completely spotless. There were a few places where the dirt had been stubborn, but for the most part it was back to its previous majestic brightness. The ground around Dan’s feet was covered in tiny flowers of various colors.

Phil’s mouth was back to gaping again. “How did you--”

“Forest magic, you idiot,” Dan said with a smile. “It’s just a matter of luring the soil away from my robe and onto the ground where it can feed some flowers. Not complicated, really.”

Phil didn’t fully understand, but he nodded anyway, feeling like it made enough sense really. He wished Taneli had taught him a bit more about how magic in the Forest worked. Even now he was having a hard time knowing exactly what to expect.

***

“You seem to have recovered quickly,” Phil said. It was now close to dawn. The moon was full and bright and beautiful. Dan looked up at it.

“Probably got her to thank for that,” he said. “I’d probably still be sitting against that tree if she weren’t full.”

“But aren’t you a child of the Sun?”

“Yes, but the Moon only shines because the Sun loves it so much.”

“I don’t understand.”

Dan chuckled. “I forget how deeply ingrained some of our stories and traditions are. There are so many of them, too. Lots of things you probably don’t know, even after all those years of study. Basically, the Sun and the Moon are two halves of the same whole. The Moon can’t shine without the light of the Sun, and the Sun wouldn’t shine without its love for the Moon. Because they have each other, they can both give light and life to the world below. They give each other purpose.”

“Oh,” Phil said, not fully comprehending, but loving the sound of the story anyway.

“So if a child of the Sun needs help during the night, the Moon gives the Sun a way to help even when it’s not around.”

“And the Sun lets the Moon stay out during the day so it can help any of its children who need it?”

“Exactly!”

“That’s really nice.”

“Yeah, it is. I’ve always loved that idea, two opposite things coming together to become more than what they were.”

Phil smiled unthinkingly. “Yeah, kind of like--” Phil stopped himself, pressed his lips together, and shook his head.

Dan turned his head to face him. “Hm?”

“It’s nothing,” Phil said with a shy, dismissive laugh.

“No, what was it?”

“I was, erm… I was going to say it sounded like us, but then… I realized how weird that sounded.”

Dan slowed his walk to a stop and stood in front of Phil. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Why’s that weird?”

“Well… you were saying how… the Sun and the Moon love each other.”

Having already known this was going to be Phil’s answer, Dan said “Oh” with no real surprise in his tone.

“I mean, that’s… probably not what you meant at all,” Phil said, shrugging and trying not to let Dan see how shaky his legs were.

“Hm,” Dan said, turning away and continuing to walk.

“Wait, what?” Phil said. “That’s all you’re going to say? What does ‘hm’ mean?”

“It’s a humming sound intended to convey acknowledgment. Are you coming or what?”

Phil jogged to make up the distance to Dan as the sky began to shed its darkness and don the violet-blue of early morning, and nothing further was said on the subject of the Sun and the Moon.

***

Dan and Phil lay in another cavern now, a fire burning while Phil scraped dirt out of his pan with a corner of his cloak. He really wished there was enough water to wash it properly, but he figured a tiny bit of dirt cooked into their food wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen to them in the last few days.

“I’m scared,” Dan said.

The sound of fabric scraping against Phil’s cooking pan was silenced as Phil listened.

“This Forest has been my home for thousands of years and now… I’m risking both our lives by just existing here. I’ve been alive for so long, the idea of not being alive anymore is… it’s terrifying.”

“It’s terrifying for me too,” Phil said. “Even though I haven’t been alive as long as you. Or… maybe  _ because _ I haven’t been alive long. I feel like I still have so much more to do. Sometimes I think my life hadn’t even begun until I walked into this Forest.”

“Do you think there’s an afterlife?” Dan asked after a moment of contemplative silence.

“I hope there is. But… I don’t know.”

“I was always taught there was one,” Dan said, “but I’m not sure. Sounds too good to be true, honestly.”

“What’s it supposed to be like?”

“Green. Blue skies all the time. Butterflies and fireflies and dragonflies, and everyone you’ve ever known and loved there to join you. You never have to worry about guarding your tree, you never have to worry about water running dry. You can just be happy.”

“Sounds boring,” Phil said with a smirk. Dan looked back at him with a similar expression.

“Says you,” Dan replied.

“Yeah, says me! What’s life without a bit of a challenge? Imagine  _ eternal _ bliss. Like really imagine it. Eternity spent without any growth?”

Dan couldn’t help but smile. “So you don’t regret coming here?” he asked.

“No,” Phil said confidently. “Well, except for the fact that I almost died, which would mean all this growth I’ve been doing would have to stop. I’m really proud of myself! I don’t want to stop growing now.”

“Yeah, but if there  _ was _ any growth in the afterlife, then growth would be eternally ongoing, so eventually the spirits there would be infinitely powerful,” Dan said. “They could get strong enough to come back to the living world, even. So I guess there has to be eternal bliss in order to maintain balance.”

“I suppose.”

“That said,” Dan said with a sigh, “I’d probably be the one rogue spirit trying to get more powerful just out of boredom. I don’t think I’d find it ‘blissful’ to be there at all.”

“Why not?”

“I mean… granted, I’ve lost people I love, so they might be there. Which would be nice. But… I’ve been thinking about the fact that I’ve never been  _ in _ love before. And I just… feel like I would want to spend eternity with someone I loved the way my father loved my mother.” Dan rolled over so he was facing away from Phil. “That’s all.”

“I’m sorry I asked you about that.”

“‘Sokay. The person I love is… probably too young for me anyway. I ought to get over it, really.”

“So there  _ is _ someone?”

Dan rolled slightly backward, just enough to see Phil out of the corner of his eye. “You’re fucking thick, you know that?”

Phil’s brow furrowed out of confusion and offense. “Hey!”

Dan once again showed Phil the back of his head. “Honestly I do this to myself,” he said, his voice becoming flat and quiet. “I’ve known you long enough to know that you’re a quick study with practical skills, but observation is not your strong suit.”

Once again, Phil was struck with his suspicions that he’d known Dan for longer than just his time in the Forest. He needed to know for sure, though.

“Dan?”

“Hm?” Dan answered quietly.

“How… how long have you known me, exactly?”

Phil was answered with nothing but the sound of Dan’s deep, even breathing.

_ Asleep. _

_ Of course. _

***

Thunder rumbled above their heads once again. Dan missed so terribly the days when that sound meant rain was on its way. Now it meant lightning. It meant that horrible prickly feeling in the air. It meant fire was a constant threat.

Dan looked up at the gray sky. “I hate that sound,” he said.

“I know,” Phil said. “It’ll be okay though.”

But mere minutes after Phil said that, they came upon another burned-out clearing. This one, though, was different. This one had a wide path of rocks and sand moving through it, with an embankment on either side. And Phil understood. This was a dry riverbed. At the top of each embankment, where undergrowth had once been, Phil saw what appeared to be the thin, partially-charred remains of trees jutting up awkwardly from the ground in strangely evenly-distributed groups. But he looked again and realized they weren’t attached to the ground. They were posts, mounted onto the edges of burned wooden floors.

Dangling from some of the posts were clean, dry animal skins, torn and burned. Littering the ground were orange roof tiles Phil had previously mistaken for stones.

Phil gasped when he realized what he was seeing.

“You should have seen this village before, Phil,” Dan said quietly. “The water sparkled. The trees were so green. In the evening, when the lanterns were lit, it was like… the warmest, loveliest home to come back to after a long day.” Dan smiled sadly at the memories he had here. He looked a million miles away. “This was where I was hoping to bring you eventually. But…”

Dan took a breath, trying to hold back the tears he so desperately wanted to shed.

“You remind me of the clouds,” Phil said.

  
Dan looked at him. “What?”

“You want to rain. But you can’t.”

Dan nodded and looked back out at the ruins. “I can’t.”

Phil studied Dan’s profile. He could only think of Taneli. The old man kept a positive attitude, but as soon as Phil was old enough to know what sad eyes looked like, he could tell Taneli was hiding a deep sadness. Dan’s eyes resembled his so perfectly. Dan’s mannerisms and way of moving and talking were so similar to his. And now, on top of all the things Dan had said about being proud of Phil and about knowing Phil well, Dan was now saying that he’d been hoping to bring Phil here.

Before Phil had the chance to say anything, Dan was walking ahead, leading them past the village. He walked in a hurry, as though trying his hardest to put the memories of this place behind him. Clearly it had been important to him once. Phil’s heart ached for him. And for the water fae who had apparently lived here. And for himself, since this could have been a home for him once. In another reality, perhaps he was happily practicing water magic with a family of undines and naiads and water sprites of all sorts, relaxing under the stars by lanternlight every evening. Phil found himself mourning the loss of this life, even though he’d never had it.

The burned wood seemed to go on forever. The riverbed they walked alongside was a constant reminder of what had once been. Dan kept his head high and his eyes forward.

It was now or never. Phil had to ask.

“Dan, can I ask you a question?”

“Okay.”

“When did you decide to bring me to that village?” Phil asked. Dan slowed down. “Was it when we were at your waterfall… or did you make that decision when I was eleven?”

Dan stopped walking and looked at Phil, his eyes still red but his mouth dominated by a proud smile. “It was when you were about thirteen, actually. I knew you had to come to the Forest, but I wasn’t sure where to bring you exactly until I saw how talented you were.”

Phil felt the air in his chest take its leave. He’d been right. The whole time, he had been right. Dan  _ was _ Taneli after all.

“I knew it,” Phil said, his eyes sparkling. “I  _ knew _ it!” 

“Well I haven’t exactly been subtle, have I?” Dan asked, letting his face brighten up more completely. “I’ve dropped so many hints. Come on, mate, keep up.”

Phil narrowed his eyes. “But… when I first met you -- well, you as Dan, anyway, you know, back at your waterfall -- you… well, you were looking at me as though you’d never seen me before.”

Dan flushed and markedly avoided Phil’s eyes. “I mean… I sort of hadn’t. Not like  _ that, _ anyway.”

“Like what?”

Dan laughed again, embarrassed now. “You’re really going to make me say it? Now? It’s just so inappropriate.”

“Yes!”

“Ugh,  _ fine. _ I hadn’t seen you  _ naked. _ And… you always used to dry yourself off so fast after practice, I hadn’t seen you with wet hair for that long before. It was… y’know. You looked really… good.”

“So… you were staring because you  _ fancied _ me?”

“Well… I mean…” Dan stammered. He giggled nervously, failing to play things off as no big deal. “Look, it’s hard not to notice how beautiful you are, okay?”

Phil was flattered that Dan found him aesthetically pleasing, but on the topic of actually finding him properly attractive, Phil found Dan’s response disappointingly noncommittal. As a kid who’d had a lot of self-esteem issues regarding his looks -- and who’d failed to find any romantic luck even as a young adult -- he had been hoping for something more. 

Not that he fancied Dan, of course. That’d be ridiculous. He was just hoping for the ego boost of being fancied himself, that was all.

Although now that they were discussing looks, he badly wanted to know the answer to one very superficial and unimportant question. So he asked, like the curious student he was. “So what do you  _ really _ look like? This, or…”

“Or what?”

“Or more like Taneli?”

“Why does that matter? Don’t be ageist, Phil. If I looked like Taneli I’d still be just as important and valuable as I am looking like this.”

“I’m not being ageist! I’m only curious, that’s all.”

Dan chuckled and shook his head. “No matter anyway,” he muttered. “You haven’t seen what I really look like yet. This is just what I wear for guests.”

That was a bit ominous, but Phil chose not to pry. He figured he’d see Dan’s true form eventually, when Dan was ready to show it to him. Phil certainly hoped it was just as beautiful as his form ‘for guests,’ but he knew deep down that he wouldn’t care what Dan really looked like. He’d still be Dan. Same as he’d always been.

“Why didn’t you tell me who you were?” Phil asked. “When you found me in your waterfall, I mean.”

“Honestly…” Dan laughed at himself and shook his head. “It’s the stupidest thing.”

“What?”

“It felt silly after seeing you off across the bridge.”

Phil laughed. “What?”

“Yeah,” Dan said, laughing at his own ridiculousness. “Do you ever say ‘goodbye’ to someone and then you walk in the same direction as them?’”

“Oh god, of course I do! It’s very uncomfortable, isn’t it?”

“It is! And that was basically what happened. Seeing you there, it just felt somehow wrong to come out looking like Taneli, saying something stupid like ‘Hi! Been awhile, hurr hurr hurr!’ after such a dramatic moment at the bridge.”

Dan was rambling. Phil let him go, a tiny amused smile on his face.

“I mean, I figured I’d see you from a distance as you were going through the forest,” Dan continued, “and I figured I’d eventually be needed to help you, right? And I knew you’d pass by my pond and my tree since if you had any sense at all you’d follow the stream. But I didn’t expect you to be  _ bathing _ there. I saw you and…” Dan started to laugh. “I was honestly about to call your name and I had to stop myself! I was just super awkward and yelled ‘water fae’ like an idiot.”

Dan finally paused.

“You didn’t sound like an idiot,” Phil said fondly.

“Of all places,” Dan said under his breath, “you’d stop at my tree. My home was where you felt comfortable stopping. It was just such a weird coincidence, you know?”

“I don’t know,” Phil said, shrugging. “I think it makes sense.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I mean, of course I’d feel safe close to you. Even if I didn’t realize it.”

Dan smiled.

“Why did you disguise yourself in the first place, though?” Phil asked.

“As Taneli, you mean?”

“Yeah. Why not just… kidnap me away and take me into the Forest when I was little?”

“Okay, first of all, fae kidnapping children?” Dan grumbled. “Come on, I taught you better than that. I thought you were above rumors and stereotypes about your own people.”

“Fair enough,” Phil said. “But don’t change the subject!”

Dan averted his gaze, looking a bit sad now. “Look, it… it’s a long story.”

Phil frowned, concerned. But he wanted to know.

“We have time,” Phil said. “I mean, I suppose you don’t  _ have _ to tell me, but… I’d like you to.”

“I should,” Dan said. “You should know.”

***

Your mother, Kathryn, was sent to the front lines when things finally got bad enough that everyone had to start fighting. In fact, most of the remaining undines were sent, since they were the only ones strong enough to make any difference. They went off to fight the evil that was drying the Forest up while lesser water fae, like the water sprites and the naiads, stayed behind to keep everything running smoothly in their stead.

Your mother and mine were good friends, actually. I told you my mother moved her tree to the castle to be closer to my father, yeah? Well, that was a big sacrifice on her part. She kept her tree under my father’s window so he could see her, but the water feeding into the castle was on the other side from there. So she didn’t always get the water she needed. In fact… Kathryn kept her alive for a long time. My father was sort of pissed off that he wasn’t the one taking care of her, even though that was his own fault because he wasn’t making her a fucking priority, but whatever, that’s a digression. 

The point is, I knew your mother very well. She was always a source of kindness and brightness. Everyone who knew her loved her. She was selfless and strong and…

Anyway. 

I watched your mother return from fighting over and over, and every time she was weaker and weaker. She always healed everyone else before herself. But that sometimes meant she didn’t have enough energy left for herself.

One day she had to go fight a particularly hard battle. They needed her, since she was the best healer the undines had. But looking back, she was so run-down, so tired… I think she knew she wouldn’t make it back.

“Dan?” she said to me.

“Yes, Aunt Kathryn?”

“I need you to listen to me. This is very, very important.”

I nodded.

She clasped my hands in hers and looked me in the eye. I saw so much fear.

“There is one undine who isn’t fighting.”

“Where? I’ll find them and make sure they--”

“No, Dan. He’s just a baby.  _ My _ baby.”

My eyes probably widened to the size of apples when she said that. I’ve already told you how big an event it is for a fae baby to be born. For anyone, but  _ especially _ someone as well-regarded and well-known as Kathryn, to have a secret baby no one knew about? Scandal, mate, let me tell you.

“Your--  _ what? _ ” I stammered. “When? But-- how!?”

“Nevermind that. He’s on the other side of the bridge with his father. His… his human father.”

“Oh,” I said in response.

“Until this war is over, I need you to watch over him,” she said. “I need you to make sure he stays out of the Forest until this evil is gone. He must be protected. At least one undine needs to stay alive in case we need a new Aquarius. Do you understand me, Dan? Promise me you’ll protect him!”

I was absolutely paralyzed with the weight of this responsibility. The Aquarius was the name we gave to the legendary god of ages past who first brought water to the world and to our Forest -- to be shouldered with the responsibility of possibly having to protect a new one, because all the other water fae were likely going to die? It was too much. But I couldn’t let her down. Not when she’d protected my mother for so long. Not when she was fighting this war and healing the other fae as best she could. So I said yes. I promised.

But then she went off to fight, and… I never saw your mother again. And on top of that, the evil was never defeated. The war ended, but we lost.

Without Kathryn taking care of her, my mother’s tree stopped getting water after that.

Anyway, I started leaving the castle as often as I could to cross the bridge into your world. I needed to do what your mother had asked of me. So I disguised myself as a plain, normal old man that no human would pay much mind to. I hid my antlers, trying to fit in. Of course, I never properly fit in with everyone else, but luckily they all just saw me as a crazy old man, not a fae. I found the remains of an old cottage not far from the bridge, and I rebuilt it and settled in so I could guard the bridge and make sure you never crossed it. I’d go back and forth between the Forest and the cottage, watching my tree and watching you, taking care of both.

After the war was over, the drying up of all the water was left unchecked. It kept getting worse. I was absolutely panicked. My entire home was going to die. And then… you knocked on my door. You, this freckled little eleven year old boy, quite possibly the last undine, came to  _ me _ rather than me having to go to you _. _ And I could see that look in your eyes. You were so lost. You needed to know where you belonged. To know who you really were. 

So I trained you. As best I could anyway. I kept you on the far side of the bridge to keep you safe, but still, I trained you. With everything that had happened, with us having lost the war, you needed to come to the Forest eventually, so I had to make sure you were prepared for it.

What’s funny though, is that... now that you’ve been in trouble, I worry that I’ve let your mother down by bringing you here. I really wish I could ask her if I’ve done alright by you.

***

Phil sat in contemplative silence. 

“Wow,” he said quietly. “I never imagined… my mother was an actual hero.”

“She was,” Dan said, a sad and gentle smile painting his face. “Even before the war.”

“So… she’s definitely dead then, isn’t she?”

Dan frowned sympathetically. “I keep hoping she isn’t. She was wonderful. She was like a second mother to me, really. She was there for me more than my father ever was, that’s for sure.”

“So we’re almost like brothers then,” Phil snickered.

“Don’t  _ ever  _ say that again,” Dan chuckled with wide eyes, half-amused and half-horrified.

Phil just smiled warmly and moved to sit next to Dan on the burned-out log where he’d stationed himself. He studied Dan’s face. It was definitely him. Phil felt like an idiot for not catching on immediately.

Even as an older man, Dan had been quite beautiful. Not that eleven-year-old Phil had noticed, although 22-year-old Phil certainly had.

But it was more than that. Now Phil was reframing every interaction they’d ever had. Every caring expression Taneli had given him, that had been Dan. Every time Taneli encouraged him to grow and become more than what he was the day before, that had been Dan. And now, this beautiful fae prince telling him his mother had been truly great, this was Taneli.

Dan had been side-by-side with him for the entirety of this journey, for such a long time, and Phil hadn’t even known it.

“What?” Dan asked with a soft smile.

“What?” Phil asked back.

“Why are you looking at me?” Dan replied quietly, his eyes flickering as he decided which of Phil’s to stare back at.

“Because, you… you just suddenly became so much more beautiful and wonderful to me all at once.” Phil spoke slowly and carefully, choosing his words very deliberately as he said them.

Dan watched as Phil’s eyes moved to his lips, and he found himself glancing down at Phil’s. He briefly hesitated, remembering that when he first met Phil, he was a ginger-haired, freckle-faced, puffy-cheeked child. But he looked at Phil now. Fully grown -- as Dan himself had been by the time he reached the age of 27, since that was about when aging stopped for the immortal races -- and far wiser than any fae was at that age. Phil had basically lived two lives at once, after all. He had the experience and knowledge of two entirely different worlds.

Dan let himself get lost in the shapes of Phil’s face. His jaw, his nose, his bent eyebrows, his shining hair, his bright blue eyes...

And there, Dan stopped. He frowned. Because it was the corners of Phil’s eyes that reminded Dan of one vital, unfortunate truth: Phil was aging.

Phil would die long, long before Dan.

Just as Phil leaned forward ever so slightly and put a hand on Dan’s cheek, Dan snapped out of his reverie.

“No,” he gasped, leaning back, away from Phil.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Phil, you… we can’t. This can’t… I mean…”

“Oh god,” Phil said, his face flushed with embarrassment. “Did I -- it felt like, you know, we were having a moment, and I… oh  _ god! _ No, you’re right, I mean, look at where we are! You were probably just sad from remembering about  _ stuff _ and we were talking so of course you’d be looking at me because that’s attentive and polite, and here I was thinking that you and I were…  _ oh my god.” _ He stood up and walked away from Dan for a few paces, and put his hands on his hips, taking a few long breaths.

“No!” Dan said urgently, standing up to follow him. “No, I promise, you didn’t misread the situation. I… I really like you, Phil _. _ But… that’s exactly the problem.”

Phil turned back around to face him. “I don’t understand,” he said, frustrated.

“Phil… I’m immortal. But you...” Dan sighed. “You’re not. I… just don’t think I can do that.”

“Well…” Phil said, thinking for a moment. “I am half-fae. How do we know I’m not immortal too? I mean, I  _ could _ be, right?”

Dan shook his head. “I can see the signs of aging on you. Things that only happen to mortal humans because their body doesn’t regenerate after minor damage the same way our bodies do.”

“What do you mean?”

Dan put a hand on Phil’s cheek. “Your smile is so beautiful, Phil. But it leaves permanent marks on you. The corners of your eyes, they…”

Phil’s voice dropped to something just above a whisper when he realized what Dan meant. “They wrinkle up.”

Dan nodded. “And the creases stay there even when you’re not smiling.” Dan smiled sadly. He dropped his hand and took a step away from Phil as he felt tears begin to sting his eyes. He turned away so Phil wouldn’t see him. “You’ll probably live the same amount of time as other humans. And… I don’t want to finally fall in love only to lose you in just a few decades.”

Phil stepped forward and put a hand on Dan’s shoulder. “But you have me now.”

Dan turned his head back to look at Phil.

“Dan, I won’t always be here. I know that. A lot of my kind aren’t here anymore, and maybe it’s my destiny to eventually be gone too. But I’m here with you  _ now _ .” 

Dan turned to face Phil completely. “And what about when you’re not here?” he said, his voice just above a whisper.

Phil frowned. “It hurts me to think about it, but… I know your life will go on without me. And I’ll just be a beautiful memory for you.”

Dan shook his head. “I don’t want you to be just a memory.”

“I don’t want that either. But… I’d rather be a memory than nothing to you.”

“You could never be nothing to me, Phil.”

“Then let yourself feel that! Just because something is temporary doesn’t mean you can’t love it while it’s there. Something doesn’t become bad just because it doesn’t last forever.”

Dan sniffled and looked down. A tear fell to the ground, and a tiny pink flower sprouted up where it landed. “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.”

Phil gazed down at the pink flower. Tiny, delicate, and fragile, it was undeniably lovely against the gray backdrop of this burned-out bit of forest. To Phil, it was precious and lovely; but Dan probably saw it and thought only of tears.

It made sense, really. Dan had been surrounded by immortals for thousands of years. To him, everything always lasted forever -- his family, the trees, life itself. And then the war happened, and the waters dried up, and suddenly loss was everywhere. Meanwhile, Phil had had his entire life to get used to the idea of existence being temporary. His mother had always been gone, the flowers in his garden would die sometimes, his neighbor’s dog had passed away, the shopkeeper who ran the grocery died about ten years back and left the shop to his son. Phil had accepted, however reluctantly, that there was an end to all things eventually. Change was inevitable.

But Dan had only had to face that truth very recently.

“Even on my side of the bridge,” Phil explained, “It hurts to lose things. We don’t like that everything has an end someday, but we have to learn to accept it.”

“How?” Dan said tearfully. “How do you cope with this?”

“By loving what we have while we have it.”

Without giving himself any more time to think or hesitate, Dan leaned forward, closed his eyes, and pressed his lips against Phil’s. Startled, Phil froze for a few seconds. Slowly, he let himself feel the contact. Dan’s lips were soft, though a bit chapped in the newly dry forest air. Phil raised a hand to Dan’s cheek, wiped a tear away with his thumb, and finally closed his eyes and kissed back.

It started slow. Passionate, but kind and tender and sweet. The energy rose as the kiss continued and Dan wrapped his arms around Phil’s neck. He pulled away from the kiss and leaned his forehead against Phil’s, not wanting to get too carried away.

“Phil?”

“Hm?”

“I’m scared.”

“Me too.”

Phil took Dan’s robe in his hands, gathering up handfuls of the soft fabric. He tugged lightly on it, and Dan smiled a gentle, amused smile. He nodded subtly and raised his arms up, allowing Phil to push the robe up over his head. Dan felt the cool warmth of goosebumps forming on his skin as Phil ran his fingertips down his chest, never breaking eye contact. Dan untied Phil’s cloak and let it fall off his shoulders. Dan wrapped his arms around Phil’s waist, and Phil felt the frenzied calm of finally sharing this sort of embrace with someone he trusted and cared for so deeply.

Phil was a rainstorm falling on the branches of a beautiful and ancient oak tree. Dan bent under the weight of it, feeling the tension build as Phil fell upon on him more and more. The downpour brought Dan back to life after ages of slumber.

And for a moment, all their fear was gone. In their little bubble, they could pretend the lifeless trees around them were alive and bright and fresh and new and colorful. They could pretend this river was still flowing, that the water fae were still around. Because in their own little world, there was only life and color. Here, everything was okay. Here, they were safe because they were together.

Tension releases, clouds part, and the groaning branch finally comes apart… and Dan and Phil fall asleep in each other’s arms, dreaming of green leaves and cool rain.

***

Phil awoke first. The sky was littered with starlight. He connected the dots in his mind, finding none of the constellations he’d seen in books, but rather the shape of Dan everywhere he looked.

Dan lay next to him, his robe draped over them both like a blanket, shimmering in the moonlight. His tiny antlers were barely visible between the strands of his curly hair. His skin seemed to glow, like the moon’s reflection on a steady pond. Dan seemed to be made of magic, down to his very core.

Phil’s father had once told him what it was like to fall in love with a fae. He knew now that every word had been accurate.

That it was simultaneously the saddest and most beautiful thing he had ever felt.

Phil didn’t want to someday leave Dan behind. Not ever. He didn’t want Dan to hurt. He looked back up at the stars and wished upon the brightest one he could find that he could be immortal and stay with Dan forever.

He knew it was foolishness. Even in a world of magic and fair folk and sprites and ikers, wishing on a star probably wouldn’t work. But he did it anyway. After all, giving Dan his breath had worked. Anything was possible.

***

_ “Hungry… thirsty…” _

Dan’s eyes shot open. Panting, he looked around, disturbed by the lack of Phil’s warmth behind him.

“Not again,” Dan muttered. “No… no no no…”

He stood and hurriedly dusted off the leaves that had stuck to his body. He pulled his robe over his bare torso and looked around frantically. “Phil!?” he called. “Phil!!”

No response.

Suddenly he heard the rapid, repetitive crunching of dead leaves getting closer to him. He steeled himself for some sort of beast or revenant to jump out and attack, but luckily he saw a familiar face.

“Phil!” Dan cried, relieved.

“Dan? Are you okay?” Phil asked, nearly panicked, running up to Dan and taking him into his arms.

“I just woke up with a bad feeling and you were gone and I thought… I thought…”

“Shh,” Phil said, stroking Dan’s hair. “It’s alright. I’m fine. I was just getting water from the stream. It’s a ways off now, so it took awhile, but I’m here. It’s okay.”

Dan pulled away from their embrace and glared at him. “Don’t  _ fucking _ do that again! You literally scared me half to death!” Dan gave Phil’s shoulder an angry but rather weak punch.

“Ow!” Phil said, laughing a little. “I’m sorry. I am. I didn’t want to wake you. You looked like you really needed the rest.”

Dan nodded, getting his breathing back to normal. “Yeah,” he said. “Yesterday was…”

“Good?” Phil asked, a playful and mischievous grin crawling across his face.

“Very good,” Dan said, smiling right back. “Very  _ very _ good.”

As the flirtatious moment between them calmed, though, Dan’s face relaxed into something distant and worried.

“You okay?” Phil asked.

“It’s just… what woke me up, it was, like…” Dan gave a frustrated sigh. “Nevermind, it was probably just a nightmare.”

“No, tell me. I mean... what if it’s important? Did you hear something?”

“Sort of. It’s… it’s something I’ve been hearing recently. It’s like… Remember when I told you that I know how the Forest is feeling?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s sort of like a whisper in my ear, the Forest telling me how it feels. I mean, it’s not quite like that because it’s not really words, but it’s like… like the wind is speaking its own language and I can understand it.”

“Okay.”

“Well lately I keep hearing the Forest tell me that… that it’s hungry and thirsty and… it seems to happen whenever… whenever one of us is about to get in trouble. Like last time it happened, I was buried alive.”

“And you heard it again just now?”

Dan nodded gravely.

“Do you think… do you think maybe we’re in trouble?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I’m worried about.”

Phil nodded in understanding. “So… now is probably not the best time to tell you…”

“What?”

“The stream is… getting really low.”

Dan laughed a delirious, mirthless laugh and shook his head. “Of course it is.”

“I didn’t take too much. I didn’t want to be greedy.”

“You’re too nice, Phil.”

“Maybe.”

“Did you get enough for us to survive until we get to the castle?”

“Yeah, I think so. Assuming Artemis catches up with us soon.”

Dan nodded. “And assuming the whispers I heard weren’t a sign of imminent disaster for us.”

“Do you expect there to be water at the castle?”

“Yeah,” Dan said. “At least I think so. The King would probably do everything he could to at least make sure his home has water, even if nobody else does.”

Phil stood in silence for a moment, contemplating the state of things. The Forest was quickly becoming a desert, far more quickly than they anticipated, and they were so far from Dan’s tree.  _ Dan’s tree… _ Phil was quickly seized with fear at the thought.

“Dan? Can I ask you a… possibly disturbing question?”

“Okay.”

“If… if your  _ tree _ dies…” He trailed off, unable to finish the question. But Dan knew what he was asking.

“Honestly? I’m only half dryad, so… I don’t know what happens to me.”

“Oh.”

“But… we have to assume the worst.”

“Do we really have to?” Phil said, his eyes beginning to glisten with tears.

“Either I’ll die,” Dan continued, “or only my dryad half will, which… I don’t know what that would mean exactly. But I’d really rather not become my father.”

***

Dan’s sleep that night was restless. Too energized by the moonlight to sleep, Phil stood guard over him and watched as he tossed and turned. Phil didn’t dare wake Dan since he really needed the sleep, but he was tempted to. The contents of his dreams were clearly terrifying him.

Dan squeaked out a tiny, quiet sob, and Phil watched a single teardrop fall to the forest floor. A tiny seedling sprouted up out of the ground where it landed.

Suddenly, Dan’s foot twitched, he breathed in through his nose, and his eyes fluttered open. He gasped and pushed himself up.

“Dan?” Phil asked gently. “You okay?”

“It’s so angry,” Dan rattled off in a panic. “It’s just so angry, Phil!”

“Shh, Dan, it’s okay. Who’s angry?”

Dan looked Phil dead in the eyes. “The Forest. The Forest is angry. And it’s angry at  _ us. _ ”

_ “Thirsty… So thirsty…” _

Dan suddenly grabbed hold of Phil. “Do not let go of me,” he said resolutely.

Phil nodded.

The ground shook underneath them -- a slight tremble at first, but soon it was enough to knock them to their feet. Vines grew out from the ground and wrapped up their ankles, pulling them apart from each other.

“Phil!” Dan yelled, reaching for Phil’s hand. He managed to grab hold of it, but his grip was tenuous, his hands too sweaty from fear to be any use.

“Dan! Don’t let go!”

The two of them tried to keep their fingers locked together, but the force pulling them apart was too strong. Soon, they’d slipped out of one another’s grasp, and they each watched the other slide into the mysterious darkness of the forest at night.

Thunder rumbled overhead.

***

Dan was underground again, but this time, luckily, it was a cavern. It saddened him to think that water had once been here to form this little alcove. The only sources of light were several small swarms of fireflies flashing.

“What the  _ hell _ is your problem?” he muttered to the Forest.

_ “Thirsty…” _

“Yeah, I get that. Why the fuck are you coming after us, then?”

Dan’s head was overcome by a sharp pain as a vision took over his mind. In it, a fae he recognized as an undine was pulled under the soil, similar to how he had been. The look of terror on her face was haunting and made Dan feel as though the air was pushed out of him. But then, the Forest showed him the result of that -- a wilting tree returned to full health. The Forest showed him another vision then: a family of naiads falling into their pond, never to reemerge. The effect of this? A bed of dry, dead undergrowth turning green once again. The Forest was about to show him one more undine -- Kathryn -- when Dan screamed. He didn’t want to see it.

“Enough!!” he yelled, pushing the vision away. The Forest backed off, and the images were gone from his mind. “Why are you showing me this?”

_ “So thirsty… need… need him.” _

“You need him? Phil?”

_ “Need.” _

“Don’t you see what you’re doing?” Dan asked. “You’re feeding yourself in the short term, but when all the water fae are gone, the water goes with them! You’re killing yourself by doing this!”

_ “Trust. He promised.” _

Dan paused. The Forest was swallowing up all the water fae, but something or someone was compelling it to do so. Someone else was in charge here.

“Who? Who promised?”

_ “Father.” _

The way the Forest communicated with Dan was not, strictly speaking, with words. It was feelings. Dan felt the word “father,” he did not hear it. He froze, horrified.

“That’s impossible.”

The forest had no response.

“Why have you been coming after me, then?”

_ “Angry…” _ the forest seemed to hiss at him. The cavern shook, and dust began to fall away from the walls and ceiling.

“What, am I getting in your way?” Dan said, growling like an angry bear. “Stopping you from devouring Phil? From swallowing up the one creature in the entire world who might be able to save you?!”

The cavern was still and quiet.

“Listen to me. Feel what I’m feeling now, okay? Phil  _ must _ live. If you want to survive, if you want the water to come back, you need to let him live. He’s the Aquarius.”

_ “Distrust.” _

“I’m being honest. You have to believe me.” Dan’s voice broke as he started to cry. “Please believe me. Please!”

His tears fell to the cavern floor, and a bunch of wildflowers grew from the moist soil.

_ “Distrust.” _

“I don’t know what my father promised you, but he lied. I guess he must have told you there’d be infinite undines, or that swallowing them would protect you forever somehow, but that’s not true. You have to see it! Please tell me you can see it! You’re dying. You have to know that. And Phil is the last undine. He’s the only one who can bring water back to you. And if you swallow him up, you’re doomed! We all are!”

The Forest didn’t react for some time. When it did, Dan felt the ground tremble ever so slightly.

_ “Fear. Doubt. Worry.” _

“I know. It’s okay. I’m scared too. But I trust Phil. And I know what he’s capable of. When you buried me, he saved me by calling that water down. He could do so much more if you let him.”

The Forest conveyed its feelings very slowly.  _ “Unsure,”  _ it whispered.  _ “...Hopeful.” _

“Me too.”

_ “...Guilty. So guilty…” _

“Why? Why, what have you done with him?”

The ground shook again, lightly at first but slowly gaining in power. Dan stayed on his guard until a wall of the cavern crumbled away, revealing a short but very dark corridor. Dan peeked in, and saw light flashing at the opposite end. Fireflies flew past Dan into the corridor and hovered within it to light his path. He stepped through cautiously, ready for the tunnel to collapse and trap him at any moment.

When he emerged into the next room, he saw Phil face down on the ground.

“Phil?” Dan said, stepping slowly toward him, fully prepared for the worst. He knelt down and saw Phil’s back moving up and down. He was breathing. Phil sniffled and rolled onto his side. Dan laughed. The Forest hadn’t done anything. It probably just felt guilty for its past attacks. “Hey, Phil?” Dan gave him a nudge. 

Phil’s eyes opened slowly and he looked at Dan and smiled. “Oh hey! You’re okay!” he said. “I saw you get dragged away and disappear. I was so scared! I was worried that maybe… um.” Phil blinked and looked around, trying to take in his surroundings as best he could in the dim, sporadically flashing light. “How did I get here?”

Dan smiled and shook his head. “I was worried about you, too.”

“My head hurts,” Phil said. “Seriously, what happened to us?”

Dan was about to answer when he heard the sound of rumbling coming from the original room. 

“What’s that?!” Phil asked, alarmed.

Dan helped him up and, with a calm and confident smile, walked him to the source of the rumbling. Where Dan’s tears had fallen, there were now no flowers, but a massive apple tree. They watched as the apple blossoms bloomed and yielded fruit, which reached perfect ripeness before stopping. The Forest gave the cavern another slight shake, and apples tumbled to the ground.

Dan smiled. “Thank you,” he said into the air above him.

_ “Much regret…” _

“It’s okay. Do you think you can create some sort of trail that Artemis can follow so she can find us more quickly?”

Dan felt the Forest give him a grateful smile, and he knew it had granted his request.

“Who are you talking to?” Phil asked.

***

Dan and Phil climbed up out of the cavern, Phil’s cloak and bag now full of apples for the road. Almost as soon as they emerged, Artemis came riding up on the back of a horse, a second horse in tow close behind.

Phil blinked, though, and realized they weren’t horses. His mouth hung agape. 

“What?” Dan said.

Artemis smiled down at the two of them, amused by the dirt covering their faces and hair. “Well,” she said, “you two aren’t looking worse for the wear at all! Can’t take care of yourselves worth a damn without me, I see.” She dismounted, landing lightly on the ground.

“You didn’t take long to find us,” Dan said smugly.

“So that trail of fruit and flowers that suddenly appeared, that was your doing, then?”

Dan shrugged. “Not exactly,” he said, smiling brightly.

“Unicorns are real!?” Phil finally said, now able to form words properly.

“Well, to be fair,” Dan explains, “they’re just horses that grew weapons on their heads after Artie fucked with them too much.”

“Unicorns,” Phil said louder and slower, “are  _ real. _ ”

“I mean, yeah?”

“Oh my god.”

“And they’ll get you to the castle in two days, even if you don’t rush them,” Artemis said proudly. “And really, you two had better get going. That sky is already cloudy again, and the Forest is only getting more dry. You’re riding through kindling, by the look of it. You’ll be safer within the castle walls.”

“Well…” Dan said reluctantly, “I’m not so sure about that now. I don’t know how safe it is to talk about it, though.”

Artemis held her hand up as though telling Dan to be quiet, but then a dome that looked like a soap bubble draped itself around them. “No one but the Forest can hear or see us now,” she said, mostly for Phil’s benefit.

“Luckily the Forest seems to be an ally now,” Dan said. “Up until just a few minutes ago, it was trying to eat Phil.”

“It was what?!” Phil cried.

“Trying to eat you. And it was trying to kill me because I kept getting in its way. It had eaten all the other water fae, trying to replenish itself, and you were the last one. But the thing is, it didn’t take long for me to make the Forest realize that eating the water fae was dangerous in the long term. It had only been doing it because someone promised that the Forest would be safe if it did.”

“Who would promise that?” Artemis asked.

“My father.”

“Excuse me,” Phil cut in. “The Forest was trying to eat me?!”

“Phil, shut up for a second,” Dan said.

“But why would your father want all the water to dry up?” Artemis asked.

“I only have theories. I don’t know for sure. All I do know is that he definitely won’t be helping us. We’re on our own.”

“We can’t just let him do this,” Phil said. “We have to stop him somehow.”

“Well,  _ obviously. _ But I have no idea how we’re going to do that.”

“Whatever it is you two decide,” Artemis cut in, “I’ll be there with an army of fae to help you. Plus a little trick or two, perhaps!” She smiled proudly, ready to do anything to defend the forest.

“Thank you,” Dan said. He sighed and rubbed his face in his hands as the reality of the situation hit him. “Honestly, I don’t think I’m ready to deal with something this big.”

Phil gave him an encouraging smile and put a hand on his shoulder. “Sure you are.”

“How can you know that?” Dan said, almost laughing.

“Well,” Phil replied with a tilt of his head, “how did you know I was ready to cross the bridge?”

“Because you were insanely powerful but I’d literally taught you all I could and you could only progress if you did, so you had to be ready?”

“And you were the guy who was able to teach me all that! You’ve got thousands of years of experience on me. If I can come here, you can face your father. This is your bridge-crossing moment, Dan!”

Artemis was standing to the side smiling. “This is the cutest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”

Dan wanted to agree with Phil, but he was still so terrified. It was one thing facing an angry Forest or a giant mud monster or a poison flower; his father was an entirely different beast altogether.

“I know you’re scared,” Phil continued. “I know, because I was too. These moments are always scary. I guess it doesn’t matter how much experience you have or how old you get, facing something you’ve never faced before is always hard. But I know you, Dan. I know what you’re capable of. And having something to protect brings out the best in us, remember?”

Dan smiled. “Since when are  _ you _ the teacher, you little brat?”

Phil smiled right back at him.

“He’s right, Dan,” Artemis said. “You  _ can _ do this. I mean, you literally have to or we’re all going to die, so even if you couldn’t we would probably still be putting pressure on you...”

“That’s not helpful, Artie,” Dan said, glaring.

“Come on, Dan,” Phil said. “What was it you said to me? ‘Try new things’? Well, what’s newer than riding a unicorn to your house so we can stop your evil dad?”

Dan couldn’t help but laugh. Phil was good for him. He sighed. 

“Alright, fine.” he said. “Fuck it. Let’s go.”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmmmm what's going to happen at the castle? What could the king's motivation possibly be?? And what's gonna happen when one of those thunderstorms gets REALLY bad?!
> 
> Tune in next time to find out!

**Author's Note:**

> Acts 2 and 3 to come! :) It's all outlined. :D


End file.
